At Graduation, Dad Texted “Don’t Expect Help” — Then My CFO Called About The IPO, And Dad…

At my graduation, the stadium buzzed with cheers, camera shutters, and families calling out names. I should have felt proud, relieved, something, but my phone vibrated and everything inside me dropped. At graduation, Dad texted, “Don’t expect help. You’re on your own.” The words cut sharper than they should have. After 6 years of non-stop research, late night coding, and living off grit and caffeine, this was what I got. While the dean called out names, I sat frozen in my gown, pretending nothing was wrong.

But that wasn’t the message that changed everything.

My name is Chloe Hart, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been the daughter who overthinks everything. At least that’s what my dad likes to say. Growing up in a small California town, ambition wasn’t something people admired. It was something they warned you about, like a storm you shouldn’t walk into. I was the kid who preferred books over pep rallies, coding problems over sleepovers, research papers over gossip.

To my parents, that meant I was drifting toward a life with no real stability. They never understood what I did. When I tried explaining neural networks over Thanksgiving dinner, Dad laughed and told me to stop talking like a robot. Mom waved me off, saying I should focus on finding a job that made sense. Each dismissal felt small at the time, but they stacked on top of one another, enough weight to convince me that sharing my world with them was pointless.

Still, I worked hard. I paid my own way through most of college. I picked up assistantships, graded hundreds of assignments, taught intro labs, took on freelance programming gigs at night. I lived quietly, choosing discipline over comfort, grinding through a field that demanded everything. And even when I started building something bigger, something real, I kept it close, private. Not because I wanted to hide it, but because I’d learned long ago they weren’t listening.

Graduation day was supposed to be different. I watched other families cheering, holding signs, crying when their kids walked the stage. Moms fixing tassels, dads yelling names with voices cracking from pride. I tried not to stare, tried not to feel that familiar pinch in my chest.

Jessica nudged me gently.

“You okay? You look somewhere else.”

I forced a smile.

“Just tired.”

But the truth was, Dad’s message had lodged itself right under my ribs.

“You’re on your own.”

The timing wasn’t an accident. It never was with him. He believed life was a series of teachable moments. And apparently, even my PhD graduation was just another opportunity to remind me I wasn’t enough. I sat there surrounded by a sea of red gowns, pretending to blend in, pretending it didn’t hurt, and pretending the life they thought I lived was the only one I had.

The moment the ceremony shifted was so small, so ordinary it almost felt unreal. My phone buzzed again, quiet, barely noticeable beneath the roar of families cheering each graduate’s name. I assumed it was Jessica sending me a meme to lighten the mood. Instead, I saw a name that didn’t belong in a stadium full of folding chairs and graduation brochures.

David, my CFO.

My stomach tightened. He knew where I was. He wouldn’t call unless something was breaking news. I glanced at the stage, two rows before my turn, and answered in the smallest whisper.

“Hey, I’m literally in the middle of—”

“Chloe,” he cut in, breathless. “I’m so sorry, but I had to tell you the IPO went live 20 minutes ago. We priced high.”

And he exhaled, almost laughing.

“The IPO hit 6 billion.”

6 billion. It didn’t register at first. It was like hearing someone else’s fortune. Then heat flushed up my neck. I could feel people turning, not because they knew what was happening, but because David’s voice, excited and bright, carried farther than it should have.

Behind me, someone whispered, “Did he say billion?”

Jessica’s head snapped toward me.

“Chloe, what was that?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My heart was pounding too loudly. David kept talking, unaware of the crowd that was slowly tilting toward me like a field of sunflowers.

“We’re trending on every financial site. Investors are pouring in. Chloe, we did it. We—”

The word hit harder than the numbers. For years, I’d hidden the company behind long nights, research meetings, silent work, and now, in the middle of the one place my parents believed I didn’t belong, my secret life had burst into the open.

I whispered, “David, people can hear you,” but it was too late. His final line cut through the ceremony like a strike of lightning.

“Everyone’s calling you the youngest tech billionaire in the country.”

That was the moment everything around us shifted. Conversations stopped. A few parents actually stood up to look. I heard at least three phones start recording. The air felt electric, humming with disbelief. Then Jessica grabbed my arm.

“Everyone heard,” she whispered. “Everyone.”

And that was when I saw them. My parents pushing through the rows, their expressions sharp, ready to lecture, to scold, completely unaware of the storm they were walking into. If Dad’s text had cut me earlier, what was coming next would slice through everything he thought he understood about me.

They were still 20 ft away when my phone buzzed again, louder this time, as if the universe had decided subtlety was overrated. I didn’t want to answer, not with half the stadium already staring at me, but the name flashing across the screen wasn’t one I could ignore.

Maria, our head of PR.

I brought the phone to my ear, turning slightly so my parents wouldn’t see the panic rising in my face.

“Maria, now really isn’t—”

“Chloe, I know you’re at graduation, but listen,” she said, her voice clipped and urgent. “Every major outlet is requesting interviews. Business Daily wants a sit down tonight. We’ve already been contacted by morning shows. Your name is everywhere.”

My breath hitched.

“Maria, keep your voice down.”

But she didn’t.

“They’re calling your valuation unbelievable. 6 billion and climbing. This is historic.”

A ripple of gasps moved through the rose around me. Jessica pressed a hand over her mouth.

“Chloe.”

They heard her, too. Mom and Dad were close enough now that I could see the lines tightening around Dad’s eyes, that familiar storm-brewing expression he wore when he was gearing up to set me straight. He had no idea the ground beneath him was about to disappear.

Maria continued, her voice spilling into the open air like a confession dropped in church.

“You’re going to need to approve statements. Your inbox is exploding. Multiple universities want partnerships. This is huge, Chloe.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, not to block the noise, but to process how fast my two lives were colliding. The private world I’d built in silence, brick by careful brick, was no longer private. My parents, the last people I wanted hearing any of this out loud, were now stepping directly into the fallout.

I forced a thin whisper.

“Maria, I’ll call you back.”

But when I lowered the phone, people were still staring. Phones still pointed. Some were even smiling, excited to witness a story they’d probably repeat for years.

I was there when—

And my parents. They stood barely 2 ft away now. Mom looked thrown off balance, scanning the faces around us. Dad’s expression was harder, confused, irritated, trying to piece together what he’d just walked into.

“Chloe,” he said sharply. “What on earth is going on? Why are people looking at you like that?”

For the first time, I didn’t shrink under the weight of his voice because for the first time, he wasn’t the one holding the narrative. Dad’s voice sliced through the noise, sharp and impatient.

“Chloe, answer me. What is happening?”

Dozens of eyes flicked between us, waiting. The stadium around us buzzed with a strange mix of excitement and confusion, like people sensing a storm but not knowing where the lightning would hit. I stood slowly, smoothing the front of my gown, trying to steady the tremor beneath my ribs.

“Maybe we should talk later,” I said quietly.

Dad scoffed.

“No, we’ll talk now.” His voice rose enough that a few people turned again. “You storm off to get a PhD no one asked for and expect us to applaud. And now you’re causing a scene at your own graduation.”

Jessica inhaled sharply beside me. Mom shifted uncomfortably but didn’t intervene. It was always like this. Dad spoke, Mom fell in line, and I learned to swallow my explanations whole.

Not today.

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed again, loud, insistent. I almost ignored it, but the screen lit up with Maria’s name again. Dad noticed.

“Who keeps calling you?” he barked. “Is that another one of your little campus jobs, Chloe? You can’t avoid real responsibility forever?”

A laugh, small, bitter, escaped my chest before I could stop it.

“Dad, that’s not who’s calling.”

He frowned.

“Then who?”

I didn’t answer with words. I answered by hitting speakerphone. Maria’s voice burst out, bright and unmistakably energized.

“Chloe, the valuation just jumped. We’re past 6.2 billion. Investors are pushing the projection even higher. Also, you need to prepare for the press. They’ve already named you one of the youngest self-made tech billionaires in the country.”

Silence. Silence so heavy it pressed against my skin. Maria kept going, unaware she’d just detonated a bomb in the middle of the graduation ceremony.

“Board members are thrilled. Multiple agencies reached out about contracts. And the foundation wants confirmation that your donation will still be announced this month.”

“Maria,” my voice shook. “You’re on speaker.”

A beat, then,

“Oh. Oh, God. Okay. Well, hi.”

Someone in the crowd actually laughed. Dad’s face drained of color. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. Mom clutched her purse so tightly her knuckles went white. I ended the call, lowering the phone. The air around us vibrated with whispers.

“Did she say billionaire?”

“How old is she?”

“That’s her dad.”

Dad swallowed hard, voice suddenly thin.

“Chloe, what? What was that?”

There it was. The question he’d never asked me in years. Not “Why aren’t you normal?” or “When will you get a real job?” but the simplest one.

“What do you actually do?”

I looked at him. Really looked at him.

“You texted me this morning telling me I’m on my own, that I shouldn’t expect help.” I held his gaze. “Dad, I haven’t needed your help for a long time.”

His brow furrowed, confusion battling with pride and something like fear.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Because every time I tried to tell you about my work, you shut me down. You thought I was wasting my life. You never listened long enough to see what I was building.”

Mom finally spoke, her voice trembling.

“Chloe, sweetheart, we—we didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t,” I replied. “Because you never asked.”

A wave of murmurs moved through the crowd. Dad shifted, visibly uncomfortable under strangers’ eyes. I reached into my bag and pulled up several entries on my banking app. The anonymous payments, the help with bills, the support I’d quietly sent home over the last four years. I turned the screen toward them.

“These were me,” I said. “All of them.”

Mom covered her mouth. Dad leaned in, squinting.

“You—you paid these?”

“Yes.”

“But why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because you always told me I couldn’t take care of myself,” I said. “So, I figured you’d never believe I could take care of anyone else.”

Mom’s eyes filled with tears. Dad stared at the phone as if it were a

Dad stared at the phone as if it were a detonator, as if one wrong touch might blow up the last version of reality he understood.

A flush crawled up his neck, turning his ears red. For once, he didn’t seem to have a speech ready, no lecture about hard work or responsibility waiting on his tongue. He just looked… lost.

Mom’s fingers trembled where they clutched her purse. Her mascara had smudged at the corners, giving her eyes a softer, almost fragile look.

“Chloe,” Dad said finally, voice rough. “I… I don’t understand.”

I exhaled slowly, feeling everyone’s attention press in tighter. The stadium noise had turned into a weird background hum, like we were suddenly under glass and the world was watching from outside.

“I know,” I said. “That’s the point, Dad. You never wanted to understand. You just wanted to be right.”

His jaw clenched. I saw the old version of him flare up for half a second—the man who would normally snap back, make a joke at my expense, reclaim the ground he’d lost with sheer volume.

But he didn’t.

Instead, his shoulders dropped a fraction.

“I thought you were… playing around,” he said. “Hiding in school to avoid the real world. I didn’t know you were building…” He gestured helplessly at the phone, at the crowd, at the imaginary skyscraper of numbers he couldn’t see. “All this.”

“You didn’t ask,” I said quietly.

For a moment, none of us moved. Jessica’s hand brushed my elbow, a silent I’m here if you need me. A few rows over, someone whispered, “This is crazy,” and another voice whispered back, “I wish my kid would turn out like that.”

A security guard in a yellow vest stepped closer, eyes scanning the little knot of tension we’d made in the middle of the graduates.

“Everything okay here?” he asked.

I nodded automatically.

“We’re fine.”

We were not fine. But this conversation wasn’t going to explode into a physical fight. It was emotional shrapnel only, and I’d been dodging that my whole life.

The dean’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, calling another name. This was still supposed to be a graduation.

The reporter with the camera crew edged closer, clearly smelling a story inside a story.

“Ms. Hart?” she called. “Can we get a few quick questions for the six o’clock segment?”

I could feel Dad stiffen beside me. Being challenged by me in private was one thing. Being cornered by cameras in public was another.

“I think we’re done here,” he muttered, half to himself, half to me.

“We’re not,” I said, keeping my voice level. “We’re just… pausing.”

I turned to the reporter.

“You can have a couple of questions,” I said. “But not in the middle of the graduates. We’re not hijacking their moment.”

Her brows lifted, impressed.

“Of course,” she said. “We’ll wait by the north gate.”

She signaled her cameraman, and they moved off a little way, hovering like patient vultures.

The security guard’s radio crackled at his shoulder.

“Ma’am,” he said, looking at me, “administration wants to know if you need an escort. They’re getting calls about press crowding the aisles.”

I glanced at Jessica.

“You walk with them,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”

Jessica hesitated.

“You sure?”

I nodded.

“Go get your name called,” I said. “You earned it.”

Her eyes shone suddenly, and she pulled me into a quick hug.

“You did too,” she whispered. “Don’t disappear.”

“I won’t.”

When she moved away, the guard gestured toward a side gate.

“We can take you and your family to a quieter area,” he said. “There’s a media zone near the tunnel.”

Dad opened his mouth to object—I saw it coming—but Mom touched his arm.

“Let’s just go,” she said softly. “Please, Mark.”

The use of his first name in that tone surprised all of us. He shut his mouth and nodded once.

We followed the guard along the edge of the field, the grass springy beneath our feet. I could feel eyes tracking us, could almost hear the group chats lighting up.

chloe hart is at my school rn

she’s literally becoming a billionaire in the middle of graduation what is this life

omg her dad looks like he’s about to faint

The guard led us under the bleachers and through a concrete tunnel that smelled like dust and old popcorn. The noise of the stadium dulled down to a distant roar.

He opened a side door, and suddenly we were in a small, shaded service area with folding chairs stacked against one wall and a big orange cooler of water on a table.

“I’ll keep the press back for a few minutes,” he said. “But they’re not going to wait forever.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Thank you.”

He closed the door behind him.

For a moment, none of us spoke. Mom sank into one of the folding chairs like her knees couldn’t carry her anymore. Dad stayed standing, hands on his hips, breathing hard like he’d just finished a sprint.

He looked at me, and there it was again—that flicker of something almost like fear.

“How long?” he demanded. “How long has this been going on? These… billions. These board members. All of it.”

I folded my arms across my gown.

“Depends on what you mean,” I said. “We incorporated three years ago. The first prototype went live the year after that. The first big contract came last spring. The IPO process started last fall.” I met his eyes. “But, really? It started when I was fifteen and writing code in my bedroom while you told me to go outside and ‘be normal.’”

Mom winced.

“That’s not fair,” Dad said. “We didn’t know. How were we supposed to know this was going to turn into…” He waved his hand again, helpless in the face of the scale.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” I said. “You were supposed to listen when I tried to tell you. That’s the part you skipped.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again. His throat bobbed.

“I was trying to protect you,” he said. “From disappointment. From chasing some fantasy and ending up back in our garage at thirty with no savings and a stack of useless degrees.”

“The world you were scared of,” I said, “is the one I built a life in.”

He looked away, jaw tight.

Mom cleared her throat, her voice softer.

“Chloe,” she said, “what about the money you sent us?”

I turned to her.

“What about it?”

“It was you,” she said. “All those deposits that said ‘anonymous.’ The checks that just… showed up when your dad’s hours got cut, when the roof leaked, when your uncle’s medical bills—”

“Yes,” I said. “It was me.”

“Why?” Her eyes were full now. “Why would you do that and not tell us? We thought it was some… program, some charity, some…”

“Because you never would have taken it from me,” I said bluntly. “Not if you knew where it came from. You would’ve said it was my money, that I should keep it, that you didn’t want to be a burden. And then you would’ve let the roof leak.”

Dad flinched, because that was exactly what he would have done.

“And also,” I added, “you spent years telling me I couldn’t take care of myself. That studying what I loved was irresponsible. That I was one wrong move away from moving back into my old room.” I gestured vaguely back toward the field. “I didn’t trust you to see me as anything but the kid who didn’t measure up to whatever version of ‘real life’ you believed in. So, I chose anonymity over another lecture.”

Mom pressed her fingertips to her lips. Her shoulders shook once.

Dad ran a hand over his face, the skin around his eyes suddenly looking older.

“So you… you don’t need us,” he said slowly.

The words hung there, echoing his text in reverse.

You’re on your own.

I could have been cruel and said, “No, I don’t.” I could have thrown his own philosophy back in his face and walked out, leaving him alone in the quiet little concrete room with the realization that his daughter had outgrown him in every way that mattered.

But that wasn’t the kind of power I wanted.

“I needed you,” I said instead. “Just not the way you thought. I needed you to show up. To ask questions. To believe in me before strangers with money did. I needed you to say, ‘I don’t get what you’re doing, but I trust you.’”

He stared at me, throat working.

“I didn’t know how,” he admitted. The admission sounded like it had to be dragged out of him. “My dad… he never said stuff like that. He told me, ‘Work. Provide. Don’t complain.’ That was it. I thought—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I thought if I made it harder for you, you’d be tougher.”

“It didn’t make me tough,” I said. “It made me alone.”

Those words opened something in the room, like a window cracking just enough to let a different kind of air in.

Mom sobbed once, quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Chloe, I’m so sorry. We should have… we should have done better.”

My chest ached. It didn’t erase years of feeling like the strange one at my own kitchen table, but it did something. It put a crack in the wall between us.

“That’s… a start,” I said.

Dad looked at the floor, at his shoes, at the faint chalk line someone had drawn along the concrete.

“What happens now?” he asked, almost in a whisper. “You’re… what do they call it? Self-made? You’ve got more money than our whole street combined. The TV’s going to be talking about you for weeks. People are going to… look at you like some kind of—”

“Headache?” I supplied.

He snorted despite himself.

“I was going to say ‘celebrity,’” he muttered. “But that works too.”

I shrugged.

“What happens now is I go back out there,” I said. “I get my name called. I walk across the stage. I shake a hand and smile for the cameras and pretend my life isn’t spinning on a different axis than it was an hour ago. Then I have meetings. And press. And a board call. And a million decisions to make.”

I met his eyes.

“And I decide, very carefully, what kind of daughter I’m going to be to parents who are still figuring out what kind of parents they’re going to be to me.”

The honesty landed like a soft punch.

Mom wiped her cheeks.

“Can we… can we start with being the kind of parents who don’t make a scene?” she asked, a faint, watery smile tugging at her mouth.

A reluctant laugh escaped me.

“Deal,” I said.

There was a knock on the door, and the security guard poked his head in.

“Ms. Hart? The dean would like you back on the field. They’re rearranging the order so you can go up sooner. And the press is waiting outside the tunnel.”

“Got it,” I said. “We’re coming.”

He nodded and disappeared again.

I turned back to my parents.

“Look,” I said, “whatever happens with media, with money, with all of it… the story they’re going to want is simple. Poor small-town girl proves everyone wrong, becomes billionaire, parents eat their words.” I shook my head. “But that’s not the story I want.”

Dad frowned.

“What story do you want?”

“I want the one where a girl who loved code more than comfort built something that mattered,” I said. “And her parents made mistakes, but they learned. And she didn’t have to cut them out to protect herself. She just… drew boundaries and held them.”

Dad absorbed that like it was written in a language he was just learning.

“I can live with that,” he said eventually.

Mom stood up and smoothed the front of her dress.

“Then let’s go watch our daughter graduate,” she said.

We walked back out into the light together. The roar of the stadium wrapped around us again, wild and bright.

Back on the field, the line of graduates had shifted. An administrator in a blazer waved me over urgently.

“Ms. Hart,” she said, slightly out of breath. “We’ve moved you up. The dean would like you on stage in the next two minutes. And after the ceremony, media will be directed to the south gate. Security will escort you.”

“Okay,” I said.

Jessica reappeared at my side, expression a mix of worry and excitement.

“You good?” she whispered.

“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m functional.”

“That’s the spirit.”

We shuffled forward. When they called my name, the entire stadium seemed to lean in.

“Doctor Chloe Hart.”

The title still felt strange on my skin, even now.

As I walked across the stage, the dean’s handshake firm in my palm, I caught sight of my parents in the stands. They’d found a spot near the aisle. Mom’s hands were pressed together under her chin. Dad’s arms were crossed, but it wasn’t his old closed-off posture. It was something more like bracing himself against a wind he couldn’t see.

When the camera flash popped, I wasn’t thinking about the stock price or the board or the headlines already being drafted.

I was thinking about the text that had started the day.

Don’t expect help. You’re on your own.

And the realization that, for better or worse, I had taken him at his word—and survived anyway.

Later, when the cap-and-gown photos were done and the stadium had emptied into parking lots and crowded restaurants, I stood on the sidewalk near the south gate with a cluster of microphones pointed at my face.

“Dr. Hart, what does it feel like to become a billionaire on the same day you graduate?”

“Did your parents know about your success before today?”

“What advice do you have for young women in tech watching this right now?”

I answered as honestly as I could without handing my family over for public dissection.

“It feels surreal,” I said. “Honestly, I’m still processing. My parents are here, and we’re all taking this in together. As for advice—work on things that matter to you. People will misunderstand you. Sometimes the people closest to you won’t get it at all. Do it anyway.”

When someone asked, “Is it true your father texted you, ‘You’re on your own’ this morning?” I didn’t flinch.

“He did,” I said. “He also raised me to work hard and not wait around for handouts. That mindset got twisted along the way, on both sides. We’re untangling it. Families are complicated. This is just… ours on a very public stage.”

The clip would go viral later, according to Maria. Something about acknowledging the mess without throwing anyone under the bus made people online latch onto it.

At the time, it just felt like telling the truth.

After the press finally backed off and security walked us to the car, my parents and I sat together in the quiet, the engine ticking softly.

Mom looked back at me from the front seat.

“Are we going to see you after this?” she asked. “Or is it all jets and boardrooms from here on out?”

I smiled tiredly.

“I don’t own a jet, Mom,” I said. “And yes, you’ll see me. Just… not as your little girl who needs saving. As your daughter who has her own life—and lets you into it on purpose.”

Dad nodded slowly, hands tight on the steering wheel.

“I can live with that,” he said.

We drove home under a sky streaked with pink and gold, the kind of California sunset that made my childhood self believe the world was bigger than our town. My phone buzzed nonstop in my lap. I turned it face down for a few minutes and watched the light change on the hills instead.

That night, in my old bedroom, I lay awake staring at the familiar ceiling. My mind replayed everything—the text, the calls, the whispers in the stands, the shock on my father’s face when Maria said “billionaire” out loud.

I thought about all the versions of this story I could have lived.

In some of them, I kept my head down, got a safe job, never built the company. In others, I built it anyway but cut my parents out completely, sending Christmas cards from a distance so they could never hurt me again.

In this one, we were trying something harder.

We were trying to stay in each other’s lives and let the truth change us.

Weeks later, when the dust started to settle and the IPO, while still huge, stopped being the headline every single day, my dad sent me a message.

No preamble. No lecture.

Just three words.

Proud of you.

I stared at them for a long time, the same way I had stared at his text on graduation morning.

You’re on your own.

Both were true, in their own way. I had been on my own for a long time, in the spaces that mattered. No one had helped me debug code at three a.m. or sat beside me while I learned how to turn research into product roadmaps into hiring decisions into contracts.

But “on my own” didn’t have to mean “unseen” anymore.

I typed back.

Thanks, Dad.

Then, after a pause, I added:

I’m proud of me too.

He replied with a thumbs-up emoji, which somehow made me laugh and cry at the same time.

Later, when the foundation launched, when I stood at another podium under gentler lights and announced scholarships for kids who looked a lot like younger me, I found my parents in the crowd again.

Mom cried, of course.

Dad clapped so hard his hands probably stung.

Afterward, he pulled me into a hug that was awkward and stiff and completely real.

“I still don’t understand half of what you do,” he admitted into my hair, “but I’m glad you didn’t listen to me.”

I smiled against his shoulder.

“Me too,” I said.

And that was the truth at the core of all of it.

I hadn’t needed his permission to succeed.

But hearing him finally say he was glad I’d ignored his fear?

That was a kind of healing all its own.

If you’ve ever been underestimated by your own family, I won’t lie and say success magically fixes it. It doesn’t. The kid inside you will always remember the jokes, the eye rolls, the dismissals at the dinner table.

But you’re allowed to build a life anyway.

You’re allowed to let your work matter, even if no one at home understands it yet.

You’re allowed to outgrow the version of you they thought was safe.

And one day, if they finally look up and see what you’ve built, you get to decide what happens next.

You can shut them out.

You can let them in.

You can draw lines and say, “This is how you talk to me now. This is how we treat each other.”

None of that power came from the six billion.

It came from every late night, every quiet decision, every time I chose my own path over someone else’s limited imagination.

It came from refusing to make myself smaller just to make my father more comfortable.

If your family can’t see you yet, keep going anyway.

One day, they might turn up the volume.

And even if they don’t, your life is still worth hearing.