Ambition

My fairy-tale-princess origin story: the first daughter after three rambunctious boys, my dad rushed out and bought the frilliest dress he could find. A beginning that promised fabulous success and blessings.

I grew up with an ambition to exceed expectations. A burning desire to do the best, be the best, and a deep fear that I couldn’t keep up.

With three older and stronger brothers, I couldn’t keep up. Like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, the other reindeer wouldn’t let me join in any reindeer games. At most I could play nurse to their soldiers, sitting in the medic tent (beneath a large lilac bush) while they fought with guns and nerves of steel. I threw ‘like a girl’ and could never play in their baseball games.

At school I found something I was good at. More than academics, it was pleasing grownups. I wasn’t the strongest nor well-coordinated, but I was the most attuned to adult expectations in the classroom. I strove, incessantly, to live up to them.

But, I wasn't always the best. I remember boasting with bravado to my junior-high friends that if I couldn’t get an A, I wanted an F. I'd always gotten As, I declared.

But one day I found a cache of old report cards in my dad's desk. My fourth-grade report card had all Bs and Cs. I was horrified. My self-image tarnished, I strove ever harder to pile on the As and bury that shameful past.