Go Ahead. Underestimate Me
I’ve proven others wrong before, and I’ll do it again.
I hope the editors at Potato Soup Journal don’t mind me sharing this news word-for-word from their letter:
Dear Kirsten,
We are writing because your story “Go!” appeared in Potato Soup Journal in 2022. We have chosen your story to be among a select number being published in Potato Soup Journal’s fourth ‘best of’ anthology, anticipated to be released in early March 2023.
More information about the release date and links for purchase will be on our website when available.
Only the best of the stories published in Potato Soup have been chosen for this anthology. Congratulations on this achievement!
It’s great when we can accomplish things, but I would like to share why the success of this story vindicates me and emotionally heals me.
“GO!” is about a single mother drag racer battling for her place in a male-dominated industry. Not only that, but she also contends with a difficult relationship with her father, who told her she would fail and should not pursue her dreams.
Basically, the entire scene where her father took her out to dinner was borrowed right from my own life. My own father told me I would fail at being an author, so I shouldn’t even try.
This is why every success as a writer is such a big deal for me. The international award my coauthors and I won with our first-ever book publication, the fact my novel, Inside Dweller: Book I: Genesis is being published in September 2023, the recognition I received for “GO!” from a writer’s site, the fact that as a prize from the writer’s site, Simon & Schuster received and read “GO!”, and now, “GO!” is considered one of the best stories published in 2022, all these achievements allow me to overcome the fact that my father did not believe in me.
However, any success “GO!” has is a double victory. The fact that others connect with this story is what makes this latest achievement so special to me, negating my father’s negative input in my young adult life.
I don’t see these accomplishments as mine alone. Every piece of recognition I get really goes to my husband and children. They are the ones who healed me and allowed me to live an authentic life.
Some have argued that my father gave me the “fuel” for my writing career, just like the character in my story. This is not true, and this is where my life departs from “GO!”
Because of the support from my husband and children over the years, the fact that they believe in me, what my father did to me didn’t destroy me. No one believed in me in my own childhood family. The moment when I had just one person believe in me, my dear husband, is when I learned how to soar. Thus, I did not succeed because of my father or even in spite of my father. I was simply able to succeed once I wiped his toxicity clean from my life. I was able to write efficiently and consistently when I healed.
Besides, I don’t think of my father when I create my stories. I think of him when he is not there to celebrate every achievement with me. Instead of feeling joy of being able to share my achievements with him, I feel satisfaction that I was right, and he was wrong about me.
Because no one else knows what it’s like to live my life, everyone’s opinion on what is right for me or what I am capable of is wrong. Go ahead and underestimate me, and you’ll be wrong 100% of the time. The reason why my father was so wrong is because he didn’t look at me in a realistic way that included my strengths. He only saw me as incapable.
It feels fucking great to be right.
Did you have a victory like this too? Hit reply and share.
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