My parents’ divorce was finalized nine days prior to my eleventh birthday. As devastating as this may sound, for my undeveloped mind, however, divorce did not have a strong connotation yet. I still spent time with both parents, went to school, and played with friends. However, the way my parents treated my older brother and me drastically changed. They competed for our affection. Although my brother was expected to be mature and not let the divorce affect him, they thought that I was too young for such a change in my lifestyle. Believing that I would gravitate towards the other parent, they avoided chastising me. …show more content…
Without negative reinforcement, my grades slowly declined. Although B’s did not concern me, my first C shook me. In the first marking period of eighth grade English, I received a C for getting somewhere around a fifty on a test. I went home and expected my mother to be incredibly disappointed. She looked at my report card and was neither surprised nor concerned. She said it was okay and signed it. I was dumbfounded. Had that been my brother, my mother would yell till her voice pierced her throat. As the younger one, I was expected to do poorly in my courses because of my parents’ divorce. They thought it was a miracle that I was getting A’s and B’s all these years. If my parents were not going to be disappointed in me, I would.
From the age of four, I wanted to pursue medicine. In my toddler years, going to the emergency room was not a rare occurrence. My brother had horrible seizures and suffered tremendously. For about two years, I would see him crying in pain. Although I have gradually changed my future self’s specialty, I always knew I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be able to heal a fellow