At college, I liked my Poli Sci classes well enough, but thrived in my electives like Sociology and Eastern Art. For the first time, I didn’t feel pressured to take subjects for their academic benefits alone, I could do what interested me. I took a part-time job in graphic design at my campus’ Women’s Center, where I used my art to support my politics. I applied for my first ever internship at a local magazine, and spent the resulting four months writing about anything I could. Every once in a while, I’d mention my newfound interests to my parents, who would tolerate my tales long enough to remind me to pay better attention to my studies.

Soon I was supporting myself partially on the income I was making from freelancing. Something I’d been so afraid to try for fear of failure was now paying my rent, buying my textbooks, and providing a safety net that had never existed before. It was a small victory, but one only I knew about. I pushed on with my Poli Sci studies, finding new friends but slowly losing interest in my major. By junior year, I’d sunk more time into writing than I had into my LSAT classes, and where my friends were becoming more serious about their futures as lawyers and judges, I was content with making art and working on my freelance assignments.

I knew that eventually I had to be honest with my parents, but I was terrified. After years of fighting my father, I’d learned to keep a protective shell around my activities, for fear of being judged. Part of me wanted to “go quietly”—to finish my degree, take the LSAT, and just apply to law school. A life with such little fuss seemed like the easy way out after so many years of carving a space for my dreams. After all, it wasn’t as if I hated my major. I knew I could commit to finishing my degree, even if I’d lost the passion for it. Maybe it would just be easier to keep my head down, and do what everyone expected of me. Law school would only take three (miserable, hectic) years of my life. I could do that, right?

I asked myself that question for months, mentally planning phone calls and Skype chats only to abandon them days later. When my parents announced their summer visit, I decided to finally follow through. Even with all of us crowded into my tiny room, I felt more trapped by our conversation than I did by the space. I couldn’t look either of my parents in the eye as the truth tumbled out, but there it was, finally: “I’m not going to law school.”

“You’re not?” my father said. “Why not?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make me happy anymore.”

My father scoffed—there it was, that ugly, dismissive sound I’d grown to hate. “You’re not happy?” He repeated mockingly, then stopped. I could see the hesitation in his face. Perhaps he was tired of fighting, too. It’d been a long eight years.

My mother’s voice cut through the silence, “I knew this would happen.”

I looked up, expecting to see the disappointment I’d envisioned so many times before falling asleep. She was smiling. “You stopped talking about your classes as much. You didn’t talk to us about the LSATs. I’ve always been surprised you took this major—you wrote a lot when you were younger. I thought you were going to be a journalist.”

I sighed, exhaling more than relief. “I wanted to be a writer. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

My mom chuckled. “Whatever you decide to do is up to you. It’s your life. I can’t tell you how to live it, Michelle.”

We both paused, waiting for my father. I braced myself like always. Finally, not looking at either of us, my father slowly nodded.

***

It’s been a year since I graduated. I’m not fielding thousand-dollar writing projects or making art in my large-yet-intimate, tastefully decorated studio, but I’m not in law school either—so you could say that things worked out. I still want to know what success will look, feel, and sound like, and I’ve accepted that success, for me, may come without my parents’ approval attached. Part of me feels motivated by this realization; the other part is frightened. It’s new and scary—to dream the way that I do. Sometimes I am afraid I am asking for too much.

As my passions change, I’ve learned to make them real by not hiding them, nor from them. What does not change is my respect for my parents. Their love for me carried them across an ocean; I will never not want to give them the entire world in return. We still disagree on how I could possibly do this, but now when I talk about going to grad school or trying my luck in Austin, they conclude our chats with a simple admission: “It’s up to you.” I know it’s important to just do what I want, and to do it with as much conviction as two young lovers stepping onto a plane, leaving familiar Nigerian soil for the last time. ♦