My father bought me a bull, I sit on him like a sofa. Fly away with the gulls And never respond when someone says bofa. In all the art that’s filtered through my life, caught the light, and faded from my view, I’m not sure what any of it means. Art's meant to make you feel something, to shake you awake to a better future. But I’m scared of being awake, of waking to a reality in which I must provide for my low-functioning brother and my parent’s expectations. And that’s why my friend’s impromptu poem was so impactful: that at this moment when I’d admitted I wanted to kill myself before my eighteenth birthday from the stress of looming adulthood, life can be full of contradictions both painful and wonderful. For the longest time, I’ve struggled with what I’m not and who I’ve yet to become. I’m scared I don’t have enough grit and am not powerful enough to do what they all demand of me. I was scared that by becoming an adult, I'd need to pursue those goals as my own, living and dying the same existence that has hollowed those around me. But the truth is, I can rebel in the small ways I can. I can turn bulls others give me into sofas, turning their passions into realizations of my own goals and migrate to true happiness. I can see the punchline before it hits me, the future awaiting me, and the mindless, immaterial ways I poke fun at my life. In all the ways I can, I live on as myself. I live as the one who uses bulls as sofas, flies away to broader horizons, and never asks who’s Candice. I live for myself, in all the ways I am able.

Raised by immigrants speaking half-English and a nonverbal brother, I'm always sidelined for some pre-spun yarn about life in Vietnam, how much my family was giving up for my brother, and how lucky I was to have been born American and smart. I shelved my own emotions at the prospect of protecting my parents’ newfound status and my brother’s open secret. I wrote what they wanted me to, reconstructing my parents’ few comforting fantasies about their lives and avoiding painful truths about our lives. When I turned in those papers filled with awkward English and unfulfilled endings, I’d lie in my bed, thinking of a familial fairytale I was too scared to escape. In fifth grade, the essay I wrote wasn’t good enough. I stared down at bloodied papers written exactly as my mom had fed me, having thrown away my memories to paint the disjointed, desperately happy picture of a family she insisted. Now she'd be angry at me, for being unable to make the fantasy believable, to break the illusion. I couldn’t look away from this jarring realization, instead of being forced to listen to another’s praise-worthy work being read aloud. And simultaneously, I was angry because I realized something else: I was a better writer than him. I could write everything he’d written, that writing could be so, so easy. It was easy when you looked at life through your own eyes. When asked what my future holds, I tell you what my family envisioned for me, one that would provide for my autistic low-functioning brother, despite my wishes. Despite this, why do I still write? I write because I want to live life through my own perspective and to tell my own story. I write because I want to live a life I've created.

I remember when breakfast at my high school was free when the pandemic drained my family's food supplies. But as I looked in trashcans, I was shocked to find whole packets of unopened banana bread, garlic bread with a single bite, and whole packets of crackers and raisins. I was stunned that these choice items I’d rushed to school for were trashed, treated as if they were disgusting, worthless means of sustenance. As I fished them out, I looked around me at cartons of unopened milk I couldn't finish for fear of being as sick as the last time I’d drank five in one sitting. According to the USDA, an estimated 30~40% of food produced by the U.S. is wasted. Relative to nationwide hunger and pollution, this amount of food waste is almost inconceivable, especially when so many children go hungry. A solution is simple: more understanding of the work and waste produced by food and a renewed focus on health. In my high–achieving school, students often rushed from eating lunch and breakfast to catch up on clubs and finish homework. As this intense focus on schooling diverts attention from an appreciation of meals, food continues to be trashed, uneaten, and unappreciated. Though this food waste seems insignificant, learning to appreciate food is not. By loving the food and resources they are surrounded by, students can recognize and make better choices to create a healthier future for themselves, their families, and those around them. What does food mean to you? Is it the reassurance that for a few more hours, you won't go hungry? Or is it an expression of life and its beauty in the forms of taste, sight, and smell? In teaching students a new meaning to food, may we eat, drink, and think of life's beauty.

I first glimpsed Mitch Albom's “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” on an acquaintance's arm, a square, cream book lined with carmine. I was intrigued when a few months later, I was gifted the book. In the years following, this book helped me conceptualize death and the significance of life. The novel follows Eddie, a recently-deceased amusement park mechanic, as he's guided by people who'd had a significant impact on his life or were impacted by his life. One character, The Blue Man, who was made sick by uninformed medical practices but found happiness in the amusement park, reminded me of my low-functioning autistic brother. The Blue Man’s journey to happiness and family reminded me that despite my family’s fight being so inconsequential in history's grand scheme, our love was significant and worth fighting for. Another character, Tala, a Filipino victim of the war Eddie fought in, reminded me of my Vietnamese roots and the war that had brought my family to the U.S. In her, I remember the humanity hidden within war’s victims and the forgiveness and resilience that has formed my family’s roots. From these pages, I’ve realized what my heaven would be, my chosen final destination to meet my five people: the same home that had long tortured me. I wake to my window open, and my eyes slowly focus on the dust drifting in from the morning breeze. I walk around this house, at home with people and things that bring me meaning. Whereas earlier manifestations were filled with trauma and clutter, my current house is home to love, forgiveness, and family. As I work towards becoming a better sister, a member of my Vietnamese community, and a career as a medical professional, I work towards my heaven on earth.

At this age, I’m reminded to live while I’m young. And because I’m young and as healthy, I should be as happy as possible. This will be the freest part of my life and, to this extent, the happiest I'll ever be. As I approached my 18th birthday, I lived in deep, hollowing regret at what I hadn’t accomplished, how much I couldn’t do, and in feeling the jaws of time constrict around me. If this was the happiest I’d ever be allowed, what's the point of staying alive? When I first listened to The Mountain Goats’ “You were cool”, I didn’t know what to make of it. In it, Josh Darnelle, the singer-songwriter-composer, tells an old friend that though she’d been bullied, Darnelle wanted to tell her she deserved better and he'd always admired her. I was hit by the second verse, his mournful belting of “It's good to be young, but let's not kid ourselves. It's better to pass on through those years and come out the other side with our hearts still beating, having stared down demons and come back breathing”. Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. All my life, I desperately struggled to be happy. I struggle to forget traumatic experiences that have defined my relationships with my family, friends, and future. All this time, I was scared to be unhappy, scared that if I left this time behind I’d never have the happiness craved from what everyone told me were monumental, essential moments in their lives. And after all this time, I finally let go, letting myself grow into a future that will be happier than I'd ever been. When I create art, I capture the hateful, angry thoughts I'd never allowed myself. In art, I dream of a future in which I finally live the life I’ve always ached for. I wish to grow old and to write about this life I love so much and show those like me that happiness isn’t some finite quantity defined by what teen dramas, magazines, and the media have taught us. Happiness is the reminder of an existence that does not demand intrusion or social onlookers. And through my art, I want to be happy, sad, and alive in the ways that my words are alive, in all the ways I am proud to be alive, and in the ways we all deserve to be proud.

When you grow up with an optimist and pessimist, whose ideology are you more likely to adopt? You become pessimists! It’s the nature of humanity to be shifty-eyed and suspect, so it’s one’s duty to become just as apprehensive. Around my mother, who'd been hardened by poverty and her autistic son's future, being pessimistic was the only way she felt she could survive, that she could train her family into surviving her critics. As I studied long into the night to make her happy, I broke out in fourth grade. At this, my mother’s gaze simply hardened, now disgusted with my pockmarked skin and her efforts to cure me of what made me hate-able. She asks me if I have friends, then immediately shuts me down with dismissive laughs and assurances nobody cares for me. And at every prod, I grew more distrustful of that feared “other” who made my mother so hateful and me so unlovable to her. When you grow up a pessimist, you grow up distrustful of imagined critics, thieves, and monsters, hiding just in the shadow of conversation. In reality, these people are just illusions, their meaning conflated by the same fears that made you so hateful. And as you allow yourself to grow into an optimist, maybe it is then you can see these as they truly are: shallow, scared readings of reality. You see people, scared to admit they hate in others most what they hate most about themselves. You see life as it is, full of good and bad. You see that despite other insisting they are happy being so distrustful, they have never understood how to love simply because they can. You see that you can learn to love anyways, despite the hate you’ve been taught.

When I was young, my uncle had a dog who’d been in his life before he ever met my aunt, before he had ever been part of my family. And by his side was Charlie, his loyal golden retriever. And as I got to know both of them and they became part of life, my sister and I saw what loyalty and kindness truly meant through Charlie, who always wanted to play with my sheltered family and me, allowing us to go to the park, eat at pet-friendly cafes, and live a life outside of the shadow of my special needs brother. However, Charlie saw my brother without the prejudice that I had so long expected from all those I knew. At school, I was never allowed to talk about my brother, his condition, and what I truly felt about its impact on my life. I’d lived life believing that my brother’s condition and needs were facets of my family that made us unfamiliar and unlovable. I grew up not expecting love or acceptance, especially from those who’d never lived my life. Despite these expectations, I was confronted with a new realization when I saw my brother and Charlie together: Charlie loved my brother just as much as he loved me. He had enough love for everyone in his life, regardless of the time he got to spend with them. As I’ve observed the humanity within animals, I have seen the world through more kind eyes. I was raised to value profit and production at all costs, at the detriment of health or true feelings. However, as I spent more time around the dogs, birds, and humans of my neighborhood, I see how silly it is to limit the quality of life to just what I can provide others. The birds do not sing for human goals. Our animal companions do not love us because we provide them with food and shelter. The birds sing for territory and love that disregards human borders and influence. Our animal companions run, play, and spend time with us because we are their companions as well. I don’t need to work so hard to be wanted or loved by human standards. I can find joy in the life around me, without human definitions of success and worthiness. As the years went on, I got to know Charlie so well, to see what love means from someone who never asked anything of me. As the years went on, Charlie became old and sick, sick with cancerous growths. I experienced death for the first time through the telephone wire, when my family was told Charlie was finally put down to end his pain. For a long time, I didn’t understand. Why did someone as kind as Charlie have to die? Why was I expected to act as if it didn’t matter? But as I’ve grown up, I now see how kindness, despite my ideas of right and wrong, is often misunderstood. Charlie loved us as we wanted to love, in ways he could be kind. My family and I loved Charlie in the time we had, in the kindness we could afford. And when my uncle had taken him to that last trip to the vet, he’d been fighting his feelings to give Charlie the kindest end possible. I remember Charlie now not just for his life, death, and everything in between, but instead for the quiet love and kindness we all possess for those we seldom see and those we may not understand, for the kindness we are all capable of. What makes life worthwhile? Or rather, who in your life makes it worth living. While people use intelligence, ability to work, and use of the system as measures of worth, it’s preposterous to reduce human and animal life to just these parameters. I see that our worst and best selves are not so different from animals because we cannot deny this aspect of human nature. As owners work harder to give their pets more freedom and happiness and pets help their owners see the importance of play and kindness, I see that both roles are integral to our everyday motivations, health, and happiness. It is this shared, reciprocated love that inspires us all to be better, to be kinder even to those we don't understand. It inspires me to keep working, to love without needing to understand. It inspires me to be better, for today and our world's future. I want to continue waking up to the pigeon coos, pet as many puppies as I can, and live without human definitions of worth. And though the world is quiet now, we are ever surrounded by nature, surrounded by humans and animals.

When I first met Charlie, my newly-introduced uncle’s golden retriever, I almost didn’t know what to make of him. What was this big, slobbery, blonde mess doing here with his dog? Was he doing this to win brownie points with my aunt’s eight and six-year-old nieces? In my sister’s case, it worked perfectly: she was hooked on Charlie. Exactly as I feared, she loved Charlie already. And already, I was scared that she wouldn’t have enough love for my brother. When I met Charlie, I wondered if it was worth loving someone I knew I’d have to take care of. To me, love was responsibility, sacrifice, and work. And I was working desperately to love my brother, whose low-functioning autism would require these qualities for the rest of my sister and I’s lives. What is the use of an animal that will require this of me and still wouldn’t understand, love, or support my brother? So when my uncle invited my family out for a picnic, I did all I could to prepare for it. I stuffed my vinyl Barbie purse so full of every precaution, that it burst. I strapped my brother into his seat, reminding him to not stick his hand into that dog’s smile. And I was scared, so scared not only that that big, unfamiliar golden retriever would hurt my brother. At first, it was exactly as I feared: we were at a public park, filled with people, picnics, and Charlie. Charlie had come up to my brother, looking confused at my brother’s attempt to pet him. Charlie let my brother climb onto his back, becoming his temporary steed for two steps. All the while, I was scared to death. Who knows what could happen? How Charlie would react? However, as I turned my eyes to the two of them, I saw that Charlie was as glad to see my brother as he was to see my sister, me, and everyone else in my family. He couldn’t understand the difference between any of us, yet loved us the same. I saw then that despite Charlie not being able to understand any of us and vice versa, he had enough love for all of us. He was gentle in ways I hadn't seen from anyone before, even my parents. And the rest of the time, Charlie was with us, he would never change in love. And though he couldn't change any of us into versions that the world could better love, his unwavering love and support were what made living despite this worth it. Despite my sacrifices and hard work, I don't think I'll ever be enough. I won't ever be brave enough to against responsibilities forced onto me. I won't ever be the best sister, even if I try my best. But in the eyes of Charlie, I was enough. To Charlie, his love wasn't limited by his understanding of human desires, sadness, and responsibility, but instead by the time he had with us. I will never truly understand my brother, much as how I never got a word from Charlie. However, I can love him and all those I meet with the gentle kindness they deserve and live anyways and love in the ways I can.

When I was young, my uncle had a dog who’d been in his life before he ever met my aunt, before he had ever been part of my family. And by his side was Charlie, his loyal golden retriever. And as I got to know both of them and they became part of life, my sister and I saw what loyalty and kindness truly meant through Charlie, who always wanted to play with my sheltered family and me, allowing us to go to the park, eat at pet-friendly cafes, and live a life outside of the shadow of my special needs brother. However, Charlie saw my brother without the prejudice that I had so long expected from all those I knew. At school, I was never allowed to talk about my brother, his condition, and what I truly felt about its impact on my life. I’d lived life believing that my brother’s condition and needs were facets of my family that made us unfamiliar and unlovable. I grew up not expecting love or acceptance, especially from those who’d never lived my life. Despite these expectations, I was confronted with a new realization when I saw my brother and Charlie together: Charlie loved my brother just as much as he loved me. He had enough love for everyone in his life, regardless of the time he got to spend with them. As the years went on, I got to know Charlie so well, to see what love means from someone who never asked anything of me. As the years went on, Charlie became old and sick, sick with cancerous growths. I experienced death for the first time through the telephone wire, when my family was told Charlie was finally put down to end his pain. For a long time, I didn’t understand. Why did someone as kind as Charlie have to die? Why was I expected to act as if it didn’t matter? But as I’ve grown up, I now see how kindness, despite my ideas of right and wrong, is often misunderstood. Charlie loved us as we wanted to love, in ways he could be kind. My family and I loved Charlie in the time we had, in the kindness we could afford. And when my uncle had taken him to that last trip to the vet, he’d been fighting his feelings to give Charlie the kindest end possible. I remember Charlie now not just for his life, death, and everything in between, but instead for the quiet love and kindness we all possess for those we seldom see and those we may not understand, for the kindness we are all capable of.

The world is seldom quiet. Whether filled with bustling cars, morning birdsong, evening howls, and everything in between, my house is seldom blanketed with complete quiet. And despite silence being golden, I see the noise as something still more previous. In the noise of people coming home to their families after a long day of work, the barking of the neighborhood dogs as they jog with their owners up and down the street, and the early morning calls of the pigeons that have taken refuge in my family’s backyard garden, I am reminded of the place humanity has amongst the world. I am reminded of humanity's place beside its animal brethren, where the wild things live alongside the tame. I see dogs with their owners, who look at each other with equal admiration. I look at the birds' nest outside, surrounded by our mismatch of trees yet still raising their young. I see myself and my place in the world, in a world both human and animal. As I’ve observed the humanity within animals, I have seen the world through more kind eyes. I was raised to value profit and production at all costs, at the detriment of health or true feelings. However, as I spent more time around the dogs, birds, and humans of my neighborhood, I see how silly it is to limit the quality of life to just what I can provide others. The birds do not sing for human goals. Our animal companions do not love us because we provide them with food and shelter. The birds sing for territory and love that disregards human borders and influence. Our animal companions run, play, and spend time with us because we are their companions as well. I don’t need to work so hard to be wanted or loved by human standards. I can find joy in the life around me, without human definitions of success and worthiness In learning more about how we treat our animal friends, I was shocked by how we control them for our own needs. Puppy mills are devastating for the welfare, health, and lives of the animals bred in these situations. And yet, why are they so prevalent? To give the adoring public the picture-perfect animal instead of a truly healthy, happy pet? Additionally, as these breeders try to “perfect” a breed, the genetic diversity of these “exclusive” breeds decreases and causes potential mortal birth defects. In the name of capitalism, humans exploit the animals they are supposed to love for human wealth and success. While animals are not human, they do have human emotions, though we may not understand their expression of these concepts. They experience sadness, pain, and joy in ways that we share in and understand. Why can we not understand that these actions are inhumane and cannot be continued? From these incidents and so many more, I see animal advocacy as more than a matter of animal rights. I see them as a reclamation of humanity and beasthood, to present both aspects of our true nature as human beings. While people use intelligence, ability to work, and use of the system as measures of worth, it’s preposterous to reduce human and animal life to just these parameters. I see that our worst and best selves are not so different from animals because we cannot deny this aspect of human nature. And though the world is quiet now, we are ever surrounded by nature and its humans and animals.

I look at myself through my mother's eyes sometimes, in the unavoidable ways my gaze has been formed by her view. I look at the lines across my thighs, where I’d rapidly lost 10 pounds when I was eight because she’d told me I was too chubby. I look at the pits in my skin I’d scarred into my nose at the anxiety of being seen with blackheads. My body feels foreign, as foreign as the future I know I must fulfill. I think of my brother, her son, with autism so severe that he’ll never be seen as just another boy. I think of childhood dreams I’d given up so quickly for profitable professions that'll provide for him. For the longest time, I turned my gaze from all these things that hurt me, into work and school and whatever mindless fiction could distract me from my future and who I was. I can't look at my mother, myself, or anyone I’d consider close to me with love. When my aunt died, the person who claimed she loved me the most, I felt nothing, numbness when I looked at her still body and made-up face. She was cold, dead, and was still unable to stir the sorrow I’d expected to feel when she’d been wasting away months before. I can’t mourn her; I never will because I won't forget when she’d called for me to go to sleep at 1:00 a.m., waking my mother to beat me bruised for wanting to use what little free time I'd had to read in peace. It’s terrible, so terrible being unable to summon the intense devotion everyone asks of a student like me, that died when I discovered I couldn’t focus on homework anymore, that died when my aunt was cremated. I’m left with the lingering question I’ve circumvented for so long: Who am I when not with you? When asked to stand for my ideals, vices, and values, who am I? I disassociate from what happened, what's still happening when this year, my mother had ripped my hair clip from my head and hacked at my tresses with safety scissors after months of hounding me to cut my hair. I cannot do anything but avert my gaze, staring at the clumps of hair littering our dining room floor. I carry my sadness with me, an almost inescapable aspect of myself. I’ve taken that fear in every search, interaction, and memory I have about those around me. I realize I may never escape my fear or past. Instead, I find myself in all the aspects I’d once kept at arm’s length. I’m smart, with an excellent memory when not avoiding what I remember. I’m funny when I allow myself to say what I think. But when these characteristics fade away, I finally face myself; I find the same person I’ve always been. I am just me, without pretense and expectation. I work towards a future I don’t fully understand, but I do so with full knowledge of what's led me to this path. My brother is someone just out of my range of understanding. When he talks, his words slur as though he’s never spoken. His eyes unfocused as he presses his iPad to his ear, drowning out all other sounds. He has low-functioning autism, a condition that deeply confounds my family and I. There isn’t a definite scientific explanation of autism and its causes, in the same way there are no definite remedies. Although we’ve tried dozen of treatments, my brother struggles to improve despite thousands of hours of studying. I study beside him, desperately fighting against my own dreams of being able to provide for him. When I’m alone, I dream of a truly mundane life, what life would be like if I’d grown up in a normall family. I dream of answers to questions I don’t quite understand and the life I’ve been forced into. I dream of finally understanding all that hurts and confuses me. I want to see life through mundane eyes, find that my brother and I, gold and silver, are deserving of a normal life as anyone else. In attending a selective, high achieving high school, I saw how ignorant students were of others with special needs. I became the co-president of my school’s Cooperation Act, a non profit foundation focused on helping students become more educated and attuned to their community. From this, I began a research project on neurodivergent students who work in situations such a ours, exposing the reality of neurological differences in those around us. In these ways and whatever else I do, I look to creating a future that is welcoming to my autistic brother, those likehim, and those like I, who deserve to be seen, understood, and supported in ways past prejudice has never allowed. I resent all I don’t understand. I resent my inadequacies, my inability to focus on what people ask of me. I resent my brother for what he cannot control and myself for my selfishness. I resent the world for not being laid out in full view, for being so vivid and blank. But more than that, I search for answers. I look for these answers in STEM and the pharmacology I will be majoring in. I look at my brother, at a face of unknowing innocence and grief. I look to those mornings where I don’t have the answers but search anyways, for all the answers I could ever want in this mundane world. I'm trying now, to love. I'm trying to give those around me the medication they need, the comforting warmth of a hug, and the acceptance I ache for as well. From pursuing medicine and psychology, I want to offer not only a clinical view of the human condition but to expose the humanity behind suicide prevention. You can't tear me from my trauma, as much as the both of us try. But you can love me, so I may love you.

I look at myself through my mother's eyes sometimes, in the unavoidable ways my gaze has been formed by her view. I look at the lines across my thighs, where I’d rapidly lost 10 pounds when I was eight because she’d told me I was too chubby. I look at the pits in my skin, just like hers, that I’d scarred into my nose at the anxiety of being seen with blackheads. My body feels foreign, as foreign as the future I know I must fulfill. I think of my brother, her son, with autism so severe that he’ll never be seen as just another boy. I think of childhood dreams I’d given up so quickly for profitable professions that'll provide for him. For the longest time, I turned my gaze from all these things that hurt me, into work and school and whatever mindless fiction could distract me from my future and who I was. I can't look at my mother, myself, or anyone I’d consider close to me with love. When my aunt died, the person who claimed she loved me the most, I felt nothing, numbness when I looked at her still body and made-up face. She was cold, dead, and was still unable to stir the sorrow I’d expected to feel when she’d been wasting away months before. I can’t mourn her; I never will because I won't forget when she’d called for me to go to sleep at 1:00 a.m., waking my mother to beat me bruised for wanting to use what little free time I'd had to read in peace. It’s terrible, so terrible being unable to summon the intense devotion everyone asks of a student like me, that died when I discovered I couldn’t focus on homework anymore, that died when my aunt was cremated. I’m left with the lingering question, the sinking feeling I’ve circumvented for so long: Who am I when not with you? When asked to stand for my ideals, vices, and values, who am I? I disassociate from what happened, what's still happening when this year, my mother had ripped my hair clip from my head and hacked at my tresses with safety scissors after months of hounding me to cut my hair. I can do nothing but avert my gaze, staring at the clumps of hair littering our dining room floor. I carry my sadness with me, an almost inescapable aspect of myself. I’ve taken that fear in every search, interaction, and memory I have about those around me. I realize I may never escape my fear or past. Instead, I find myself in all the aspects I’d once kept at arm’s length. I’m smart, with an excellent memory when not avoiding what I remember. I’m funny when I allow myself to say what I think. But when these characteristics fade away, I finally face myself; I find the same person I’ve always been. I am just me, without pretense and without expectation. I work towards a future I don’t fully understand, but I do so with full knowledge of what's led me to this path. Today, I see myself with new eyes. I see that my brother has taught me more about myself and my family's history. I've learned so much about my school and those I meet, realizing the impact of prejudice on students just like my brother. In order to protect my brother, I’ve become attuned to the nonverbal, emotional cues of his. I hold his hand when he’s scared, empathizing with his fear of the hospital, new experiences, and those around us. In order to protect him, I’ve chosen to study medicine and psychology, to find ways to make these fears more recognizable and to ease those like him. However, when I look around, I find the scariest obstacle we’re to face is the perception of those around us. I see I am one of the few people who truly see and understand my brother's fear of the doctor, his need of the correct medications, and my role as a sister and a caretaker. I see all these aspects of my life and I see myself and my own place in my life and future. I'm trying now, to love. I'm trying to give those around me the medication they need, the comforting warmth of a hug, and the acceptance I ache for as well. From pursuing medicine and psychology, I want to offer not only a clinical view of the human condition but to expose the humanity behind suicide prevention. I want to expose the reality of families like mine, who are struggling to be seen as normal and worth of love, support, and empathy in this world. You can't tear me from my trauma, as much as the both of us try. But you can love me, so I may love you.

Between my mother and I, math is one of our few common tongues, as she’s home-grown Vietnamese and I’m American-made. We differ in the ways we count fingers, the ways we leave tally marks across the pages, and the ways we love. And though we keep the same pace, I can never place just who the woman who’s raised me is. To her, math was the way out of her war-torn Vietnam. To me, the numbers and equations and calculations are detached visions of a looming reality of taxes, consumption, and adulthood. I struggle deeply with math, despite knowing I have it within myself to become a prodigy again. When other kids were learning their multiplication tables, I knew them by heart. When other kids played, I spent my lunches finishing homework in the school’s baseball dugout, looking out of the cage’s wires at their games. Where other kids allow themselves to dream of being astronauts, princesses, and racecar drivers, I was asked to reconsider the cost of my gifts and rationalize a profitable profession for my autistic brother’s needs. In trying to save for my family, I am met with judgment even from within. My sister accuses me of being judgemental, and that the dismissal of my wants is an assertion of moral superiority. My mother calls me foolish, for not taking screenshots that she could add to her photo albums and brag about. For a long time, I turned to math as the one respite from these judgments, from the thoughts that hurt me. I count, count, count all the dollars I’ve saved and the coins that grow uncomfortably warm in my grip. I count, count, count all the treasures of youth I’ve allowed myself, desperately asking if these will be enough to last for the rest of my life. I struggle with math and what I’ve given up to have been good at it. Today, I struggle with math. Calculus , with its numbers, letters, and variables, brings the worst reactions from me. They ask me to reconstruct the world through algebraic equations and fundamental elements. I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t understand this new view of the world and this mathematical language, which was turning what I thought I knew into fundamental building blocks. I couldn’t understand what the meeting time of two trains traveling at different speeds could possibly mean to me or the reaction of Na and Co. I’d lost now not only my childhood but also my confidence in the future. Fundamentally, I know I don’t have all the answers, much less toquestions that have plagued me my entire life. I know I can never fix my family, nor make them understand I had been trying to do what was best for us. I know I don’t understand the rules of exponents or derivatives. And for now, that is fine. I do not need to know everything all at once, to be some perfect person all of a sudden. I can persist, fight against what others tell me is the correct answer, and discover for myself the solutions. I want to read and speak and write math fluently, to understand my world in ways I had never been able to. I want to see my mother as the intrinsically different, yet fundamentally alike being that had taught me math. I want to see the world through child-like eyes and mathematical formulae, answering my own questions just as quickly as I can ask them. I want to learn more. I want, finally, to understand the world as it always has been: simply, mathematically beautiful.

Here’s a question: was math, as well as all of its entailing formulas, fractions, and facts, invented or discovered? For all intents and purposes, math is not the invention of human thoughts, but the realization of patterns between such ideas and nature. Whereas before it seemed there was some unknown connection between the speed of an object, the rate at which it moves, and the rate at which its movement changes, the discovery of calculus makes these concepts so incredibly easy to visualize. Calculus is the math of change. And because I can’t understand change, it confuses me infinitely. I don’t understand how derivatives work and what they could mean in my waking world. I don’t understand, despite their essential nature, how calculus intersects with my life of concrete, constant expectation, and perfection. I don't understand how revolutions of solids could possibly create something real, tangible within my grasp. I don't understand the infinitely tiny sums that create the full picture of human knowledge and prediction. And this makes me scared, makes me so scared that I will never understand these intersections. I’m scared of the unpredictable future and the growth it brings for our world, of the people I’m to love, the work I’m to do, and the person I’m to be. I am scared of what I don’t understand, scared at the thought of a world that cannot be understood as my eyes see it. However, I see that calculus, in its intersection with all I do not yet understand, is the fundamental working principle of this world I love. It is the study of trends and the future, being able to predict the connections between population growth and the net total of growth over time. I am scared of change, of being changed to take care of my family, and of losing who I am today. However, I see that change is not something to be feared, but the natural order of life and its processes. As humans, change has always been a scary concept, one that threatens the fragile relationship between seen and unseen. With calculus, we are able to analyze complex sets of data into understandable relationships with time, frequency, or whatever variable imaginable. We can reinterpret the formulas themselves, dismantling double derivatives or reimagining possible integrals that highlight the broader significance of the data itself. With the help of calculus, I see now that I need not ever be scared of such change, of a change that had always existed within the data and formulas that had come before it. In understanding calculus, we understand not only the central trends that guide us all, but the interlocking connections that had been ever-present. Here's the question: is fate something bred within us or inborn? For all intents and purposes, I’ll need to check my personal growth formula for that one.

I look at myself through my mother's eyes sometimes, in the unavoidable ways my gaze has been formed by her view. I look at the lines across my thighs, where I’d rapidly lost 10 pounds when I was eight because she’d told me I was too chubby. I look at the pits in my skin, just like hers, that I’d scarred into my nose at the anxiety of being seen with blackheads. My body feels foreign, as foreign as the future I know I must fulfill. I think of my brother, her son, with autism so severe that he’ll never be seen as just another boy. I think of childhood dreams I’d given up so quickly for profitable professions that'll provide for him. For the longest time, I turned my gaze from all these things that hurt me, into work and school and whatever mindless fiction could distract me from my future and who I was. I am, quite honestly, not the sort of person who's easily liked. I am amicable and bold, with a sense of humor and fun I find few others. I am smart and a great writer. However, I'm also the sort of disloyal scum people talk badly of. I'm incendiary, with a definite hatred of all those who wrong me. I'm resentful of those who claim to love me but are not strong enough to save me from my family's forces. I hate those who claim they're better than me, for all the writers and geniuses and comedians who are rewarded for being who I've been all along. Just below my surface, I hate so intensely it confuses me. Besides, if I'm just to leave my aspirations and friendships behind in the name of my family, what's the point of my desperate attempts at connection. I can't look at my mother, myself, or anyone I’d consider close to me with love. When my aunt died, the person who claimed she loved me the most, I felt nothing, numbness when I looked at her still body and made-up face. She was cold, dead, and was still unable to stir the sorrow I’d expected to feel when she’d been wasting away months before. I can’t mourn her; I never will because I won't forget when she’d called for me to go to sleep at 1:00 a.m., waking my mother to beat me bruised for wanting to use what little free time I'd had to read in peace. It’s terrible, so terrible being unable to summon the intense devotion everyone asks of a student like me, that died when I discovered I couldn’t focus on homework anymore, that died when my aunt was cremated. I’m left with the lingering question, the sinking feeling I’ve circumvented for so long: Who am I when not with you? When asked to stand for my ideals, vices, and values, who am I? I disassociate from what happened, what's still happening when this year, my mother had ripped my hair clip from my head and hacked at my tresses with safety scissors after months of hounding me to cut my hair. I can do nothing but avert my gaze, staring at the clumps of hair littering our dining room floor. From my stifling upbringing, I imagined romance obsessively, thinking that if someone could just look at me, look past my family, they could rescue me from my hatred and my enclosing future. And so, I love those who I want to be, wanting to steal their confidence and passion for myself. I loved someone once, who everyone called a great writer. I loved him as much as I ever could, as much as I will ever love anyone. Yet, he loved my best friend, something everyone could see. And I couldn't hate either of them because I loved her too. When my mother found my journal entries on my heartbreak and mocked me, the ugly, stupid daughter, for even thinking I was in the running. Looking back, I don't believe what I felt was love at all but desperation for escape. This is a realization that deeply scares me, that I can never escape. Despite my love, I cannot be loved back. I carry my sadness with me, an almost inescapable aspect of myself. I’ve taken that fear in every search, interaction, and memory I have about those around me. I realize I may never escape my fear or past. Instead, I find myself in all the aspects I’d once kept at arm’s length. I’m smart, with an excellent memory when not avoiding what I remember. I’m funny when I allow myself to say what I think. But when these characteristics fade away, I finally face myself; I find the same person I’ve always been. I am just me, without pretense and expectation. I work towards a future I don’t fully understand, but I do so with full knowledge of what's led me to this path. I'm trying now, to love. I'm trying to give those around me the medication they need, the comforting warmth of a hug, and the acceptance I ache for as well. From pursuing medicine and psychology, I want to offer not only a clinical view of the human condition but to expose the humanity behind suicide prevention. You can't tear me from my trauma, as much as the both of us try. But you can love me, so I may love you.

In so many ways, I feel immaterial. When asked what my future holds, I tell you what my family envisioned for me. When asked to abandon my dreams for professions that would provide for my autistic low-functioning brother, I comply immediately. When told of student loans my family had already taken out in my name, I broke down at my imminent debt on top of my brother’s medical concerns. I am immaterial, unable to fight this future despite my fear of these choices. In these moments, I look around my room and rearrange my present, shifting my eyes to the world I’ve built. As someone with little control over my life, I clung desperately to all given to me and threw myself into work to the detriment of my home. I was constantly overwhelmed by my disorganized home and my inability to perform as perfectly as I desired. When I learned organization could reduce anxiety, I started my first organization project: my dresser. Whereas I used to shun my clothes and body, I suddenly saw the beauty of my clothes and anatomy. Simultaneously, I saw how much I didn't use and slowly began decluttering all that made me uncomfortable and ugly. From there, I began to turn my view of my home as an inhospitable, detached reality into the warm, welcoming place I had always deserved. I am a minimalist by default. I live between the structure of my shelves and the lines of my textbooks to a degree of simplicity reminiscent of austerity. I live this way for a simple reason: I want to deeply understand and love what I own. I want a place for everything and everything in its place. I want a place for me, where I belong amongst all that I own and love.

Before I understood the value of money, my aunt had already been rich in currency. In other words, she was a collector of coins, of cold, hard cash. In first grade, I was introduced to coin collecting when my aunt gifted me her beloved collection of American quarter-dollars. She insisted I hold onto this mismatch of coins from 2003 to the present-day 2012, insisting the collection’s value would pay for my college years. I couldn’t understand why she loved those kitschy coppers so much. And still, she loved me more, inviting me into looking at money not as a transaction but as a symbol of national and mundane history. I don't truly understand my aunt and I never will. In 2019, she died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and I watched her love strain as her body wrestled with her mind. During this time, I saw money as my mother saw it: as a trade-off for time. If we poured money into her treatment, perhaps the coins would save her in the same way she saved them. For a long time after she was gone, I could not see money as anything but some fickle mistress, whose presence determined life and death but would not promise recovery. I was scared of the role money would play in my life. Recently, I've uncovered my aunt's old collection of presidential dollars, blanketed with a layer of dust. I lay them out before me not, looking at presidential portraits left empty after her death. I will never understand my aunt, but I do understand her love. I collect coins now because I love her, love the history she loved. I collect coins now because I want to make her, even in death, rich in love and currency, complete her journey throughout the ages.

Often, I think to myself about how serendipitous scientific discoveries are. After all, science is all around us, surrounding humanity completely and inevitably. As I checked my phone during my morning teeth brushing, I spilled a few drops of water onto my screen. These drops activated my white home screen, revealing the cyan, magenta, and yellow hidden beneath. Isn’t that incredible? How is it water can replicate the static electricity that allows my finger to control my screen? How can my eyes interpret such vivid colors as mundane alabaster? How is it possible that I can’t understand so much about the rules of the universe when I’ve spent my whole life studying its phenomena? In chemistry, there’s a famous experiment: the double-slit discovery. Designed to differentiate between the movement of electrons in gold, silver, and other metals, it had initially been thought to be a dud, as all results showed the number of electrons transferred from each element to be the same. However, this belied a simple, central realization: all elements contain electrons! And it is with this simple discovery that I ponder the implications of “discovering”. What fantastic events have happened without recording, understanding, and insight? What earthly truth lies just below the mundane? What do I miss in my everyday life, in the daily miracles I just can’t comprehend? My brother is someone just out of my range of comprehension. When he talks, his words slur as though he’s never spoken. His eyes are unfocused as he presses his iPad at full volume to his ear, drowning out all other sounds. He has low-functioning autism, a condition that deeply confounds my family and me. There isn’t a definite scientific explanation of autism and its causes; in the same way, there are no definite remedies. Although we’ve tried dozen of treatments, my brother struggles to improve despite thousands of hours of studying. I study beside him, desperately fighting against my dreams of being able to provide for him. When I’m alone, I dream of a truly mundane life, what life would be like if I’d grown up in a normal family. I dream of answers to questions I don’t quite understand and solutions for the family I’ve been forced into. I dream of finally understanding all that hurts and confuses me. I want to see life through mundane eyes and find that my brother and I, gold and silver, are just as deserving of a normal life as anyone else. I resent all I don’t understand. I resent my inadequacies, my inability to focus on what people ask of me. I resent my brother for what he cannot control and myself for my selfishness. I resent the world for not being laid out in full view, for being so vividly cyan, purple, and magenta despite my inability to see past white. More than that, I search for answers. I look for these answers in STEM and the pharmacology and chemistry I will be majoring in. I look at my brother, at a face of unknowing innocence and grief. I look to those mornings when I don’t have the answers but search regardless. I don't have all the answers, much less those to my deepest, darkest questions. However, I'm surrounded by the formulas, facts, and consciousness of myself and those who have come before me, of my parents and teachers and loved ones. I'm surrounded by my desperation to create a better world for my brother, one he can understand. I come to you now, surrounded by technology, questions, and resentment. I come to you now, hungry for answers.

I go outside, to my city's hustle and bustle. I watch steel horses rush about and their indignant drivers honking. The city's alive with work to be done, people to be met, and a world to be changed. I’m swept into a hurry of social expectation and worry, where I can’t escape comparison. But when all's said and done, what must we come home to? For me, it's the thrum of the washing machine, cleansing me of the dirt, stains, and hurry of our modern world. My aunt, after a day of schooling, would take her yoke to the neighboring village for water. Nearly every day would she walk this path, coming home with buckets strung by her yoke. At last, my mother and her would take to the wash bin, scrubbing furiously at the few clothes their family owned. It's with bitterness my mother tells me this, tells me I couldn't imagine how hard she'd worked those days. I look at my hands, uncalloused besides where my pen hits my middle finger. I look at my mother, hardened from her life. What does the humble washing machine shift in my home, in homes just like mine? It's the lifting of the burden of a “woman’s role” in her home. Whereas in the past I would’ve spent hours scrubbing my family’s clothes, I now toss my shoes into the washing machine’s heart. I listen to the beating of the machine as I place keepsakes into their crannies and gadgets into their nooks. I think of all I have, of those I’ve loved, and the kindness they’ve shown me. I slow down, in step with the pulse of the machine. I sit with my mother then and talk about our lives, our loves, and our future. Since humanity's drawn breath, we’ve fought to make time for pleasure, our families, and a welcoming home. It’s easy to overlook one’s home, so focused are we on creating a world on the cutting edge of technology. However, I see we aren't so disconnected from our past, that the role of technology is to protect our loved ones, that the role of a woman isn’t simply homemaker or inventor. I invent for women just like I, who see a burden worth lifting, a life worth living. I invent for my mother, her mother, and all who make life worth living in this dynamic, uncaring world.

I look through my window as my father drives me to school, where the traffic rush is brutish and I’m sleepy-eyed. I go about my day, leaving me winded from nothing in particular, going home to repeat it all over again. If I have time, I’ll stand next to the old, gnarled maple and see how its broad trunk meets the ground and how green the grass is and the police station, library, and businesses right outside of our school gates. Logically, I know why the grass is so green: plants require chlorophyll to process light engendered by photosynthesis, to absorb the most convenient wavelengths of light and I’m only seeing a green waste product. I know all this, but I’m still confused. Often I feel I know all I need about the world, all that would be necessary to be happy. Then, I wonder if I asked to recreate the world as I know it, could I do so? When I feel most disconnected and discontented with my reality, I try to explain to myself what confuses me and what amazes me, asking myself if I could create the world that I so often ignore for the din of what others demand of me. I look at myself, at the curve of my eyes, at the wave of my hair. I listen to a friend, fighting a familial lack of collagen as she gently squeezes lotion into my hands. I understand every feature, every thought I have as reflections of someone else, yet I’m still confused. I’m still struck by everyone I’ve known, even if I could pick them out of a character sheet. I’m surrounded by what I do and don’t understand, by their conceptions, by their depth, by their love. People confuse me deeply, in the ways they shape me and surround me. And so, when I’m at my lowest, I look to them and their stories to comfort me. When I’m unable to cry for myself, I read fiction that will make me cry. When I look at those around me, I see them as they truly are, as the innately scared, fragile beings that have been thrust into their circumstances. In my moments of confusion, it is from these people that I remind myself of love, tragedy, and hope that, while I may not understand, keeps me searching for the goodness in others and in myself The grass is so green beneath my feet even still, the sky so blue, those alive and dead both strange and familiar. In all honesty, I don’t know myself. Everyone demands you must be happy and every action must be purposeful, that I must give up what I want to provide for my low-functioning autistic brother. And despite their demands, I can’t keep up. I can’t let my anger go, my anger at everyone who has ever hurt me. Until recently, I had not realized these feelings didn’t need to be hidden. I could love humanity just as much as I hate the expectations society impresses upon me. I can love my ethnic features as much as my definitions of beauty. I look through my window now, thinking of all those who've hurt me, who’ve loved me, and the world that's shaped us. I think of the future, of sitting there under the oak with my friend and breathing in all the air that has sustained humanity for billions of years. I sit and listen to my friend, talking about her ancestors and her roots as Vietnamese royalty. And though I don’t understand, I listen all the same.

My mom told my grandma to stop feeding me so much when I was eight when she thought baby fat didn’t befit a girl. To my grandma, food was one of the few ways she could communicate with her American-born granddaughter, who would never know the dirt floor, war-torn Vietnam she’s raised her children in. She loved me, but she trusted her daughter. To this day, I have lines on my thighs, stretch marks from losing 10 pounds in second grade. But my mother was right. I was thin. I hate consumption. I hate the feeling of eating and expelling, of bodily change. After I stopped eating, I stopped growing. Where I used to be the tallest girl in my grade, by fifth grade I was dwarfed by half my class. Where I was once naturally athletic enough to run circles around friends, I suddenly struggled to complete a mile. As I studied long into the night and drank milk to combat my halted growth, I broke out in fourth grade from stress and depression I refused to acknowledge. At this, my mother’s gaze simply hardened, now disgusted with my pockmarked skin. When we went out, she looked at the girls in the line before us, gave me a pointed look, and unflinchingly whispered, “They have beautiful skin and you look so dirty”. I didn’t know what to say then, shamed by my own body into silence. Truthfully, I’m scared of what it means to be healthy. I’m scared of being too big, of being treated ugly. When I was fourteen, I was complimented for the slimness of my legs, and told my calves were the standard of beauty. I’m scared of becoming healthy, of losing emaciated extremities that were the only praise during years of punishment. But I know I can't keep living like this From the pandemic, I began to eat lunch instead of doing homework and slept more than I had in years. Abruptly, the skin I used to rub raw began to clear. As I look at myself in the mirror, watching my eyes curve and my feet dance, I saw movement and activity, not as intrusions on work, but as what made work worthwhile. I wanted to dance and laugh and move, to turn from the habits that once hurt and comforted me to a new understanding of the body and mind I'd neglected for so long. I want to be healthy because I have someone to protect. My brother, my mother’s son, has low-functioning autism. He struggles to comprehend change and has been ostracized by our family, friends, and our community. He only eats instant noodles, yet has grown larger and stronger than me. I want to provide the life that will make him the happiest, give him the chance to go where he loves and be loved by those who meet him. I want to be there too, to help both of us be happier and healthier than we could have ever imagined. I hope for that day, for a day removed from social isolation and expectation. I want to let go, at last, to believe in a version of myself removed from the rat race and the mind games. I want to see myself through clear eyes, unclouded by the self-hatred I’d internalized for so long. I want to dance for hours and to eat all I could ever want. I want to sleep now and dream of the future.

Why do people write? Is it because they love words, that prose is beautiful? Raised in a house without music, television, and different opinions, words were worth little more than the beige paint on my walls. The world is beige and I was comfortable being beige. I’m just to do what I’m told, to maintain the fragile balance of the golden child and the unseen, unheard good girl. Until suddenly I’m not, until my inability to write makes me fall behind, until it makes me angry. Raised by immigrants speaking half-English and a nonverbal brother, I was always sidelined for some pre-spun yarn about life in Vietnam, about how much my family was giving up for my brother, and how lucky I was to have been born so American and so smart. I accepted this, shelving my own emotions at the prospect of protecting my parents’ newfound status and my brother’s open secret. I wrote what they wanted me to, reasoning that not only was I reconstructing my parents’ few comforting fantasies about their lives, but avoiding painful truths about my family and myself. When I turned in those papers filled with awkward English and unfulfilled endings, I’d lie in my bed, staring for endless hours at walls I was too scared to decorate, thinking of a familial fairytale I was too scared to escape. In fifth grade, the essay I wrote wasn’t good enough. I stared down at the bloodied paper written exactly as my mom had fed me, having thrown away my memories to paint the disjointed, desperately happy picture of a family she insisted. Now she would be angry at me, for being unable to make the fantasy believable, to break the illusion. I couldn’t look away from this jarring realization, instead being forced to listen to another’s praise-worthy work being read aloud. And simultaneously, I was angry because I realized something else: I was a better writer than him. I could write everything he’d written, that writing could be so, so easy. It was easy when you looked at life through your own eyes. Ask me now, why do I write? Is it a labor of love, of the passion I feel towards my point of view? No, it is not. My writing is an act of violence against all those who use words. I train my view to scripts, essays, and stories, desperate to be better than all those who hurt me with their words. I steal like an artist and hate like a critic. My parents were right to teach me to speak, to let me drown in fairytales and fantasies. Now, I speak for myself, for all the ugly, honest things I see. I write because I want to be better, to tell better stories than what others insist I say. I am angry and I am a writer, to the dissatisfaction of those who insist on beige.

When I stand next to my brother, I’m reminded of what I’m not. He’s tall, hulking, and strong. My brother is my family’s sole son, the youngest child in a family of Vietnamese immigrants. Most notably, he’s severely autistic and perpetually stuck in the first grade, despite my parents pouring thousands of hours and dollars into his education. When I stand next to my brother, I’m reminded of what I must become. To protect my brother, I’ve become attuned to his nonverbal, and emotional cues. I hold his hand when he’s scared, empathizing with his fear of the hospital, new experiences, and those around us. To protect him, I’ve chosen to study medicine and psychology, to find ways to ease and comfort him and those like him. However, when I look around, I find the scariest obstacle we’re to face is the perceptions of those around us When I stand next to you, I’m reminded of what I must do. In attending a selective, high-achieving high school, I saw how ignorant students were of others with special needs. I became the co-president of Oxford Academy's Cooperation Act branch, a non-profit foundation focused on helping students become more educated and attuned to their community. From this, I created a research project on neurodivergent students in environments such as my own, to bridge the gap between this seeming "other" and the true community of prospective doctors, lawyers, and world-changers all of us were. I want to continue to teach others and those within the medical and psychological fields about the humanity of the patients and the policies we create. Despite knowing I don't yet possess all the knowledge, manpower, and skills to make these changes possible, I use my true talent, my hope for the future, for my brother.

If my mom's taught me anything with her tirades of life in Vietnam, it's you had to be strong. Strong enough to walk ten miles to school and back, work in rice fields at ten years old, and have made it to America. Maybe it's something about America, the land of opportunity, that's made me soft, made the blood of my ancestors leave me leftovers of a culture that doesn’t quite fit together and a language I can’t remember. My mom tells me Aunty Vinh was stronger than even her, lifting the bags of Ba Co Gai rice off the shelf and into her squeaky cart, pushing against the resistance of one stubborn wheel spinning aimlessly, to the cash register. I wonder if something about America had made my aunt soft when in the summer of 2018, her lymph nodes swelled up her neck and she never wanted to go out and play with us. And though it was my aunt who was dying, I couldn’t help noticing my family fall apart; I’d never seen them softer. My aunt was reds, oranges, and yellows. She was the hearth of our home in a family that never stopped arguing. She was a fire, throwing off sparks in the cold nights. And it seemed ironic that her cancer seemed to spread like wildfire, burning us up from the inside. It didn’t seem real. Families like mine didn’t cry over tragedies like Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. We didn’t buy bottles and bottles of medicines that fill up the fridge and drown out the food. We didn’t, we’re American. But as we watched the red from my aunt fade, all we'd had left with were the whites and blues of empty hospital rooms and the metallic glint of syringes that never seemed to leave her arm. Cancer. Most people never know it’s there. But we did. You hear so many stories, yet you never think you'd have to see them. Needles and pills and medicines, shades of blue and white, seemed to take over where we’d used to come home. Those days, it felt like these flowed through my veins, not the fickle, red blood I'd once thought warmed me from the inside out. I’m selfish. I know that. Because even as I watched my aunt fight for her life, I can’t help but be eaten alive by the same thing that was killing the rest of my family. When my Aunty stuck syringes straight into her thin, now scarred arms, even the medicine couldn’t save her. And I’m angry. Angry at everything, angry for no reason. Angry it looked like she was improving just a few months earlier. Angry everyone else was falling apart. Angry it costs so much money to keep up with the chemo and the injections and the doctor visits. Angry it all comes down to something I can’t control, something deep in her veins. I’m what everyone thinks is an angry American, too privileged to have seen real poverty, too privileged to have swept dirt floors, and much too privileged to starve so my younger siblings could have a chicken’s egg. But my Aunty was not. And she was the one dying from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. She wasn’t angry at anything anymore. Those days, Aunty was the shadow of a bonfire, burnt out too soon on those cold, lonely nights. I wonder if she was lonely when she died then, so far from who she'd once been. I remember my Aunty as a spitfire, but I know what made her so sick. She was sad, so sad she struggled to get out of bed most days. Despite her loving walks with my sister and me, our school schedules made us hard-pressed for time. She didn’t want to walk for a long time then, met with the same neurotic concerns we had about school. When she’d gotten sick, despite every family member asking her to go to the doctor, she’d refused. I don’t know if it was kind or self-destructive of her, in the ways these emotions and mental illnesses morph your intentions into ugly perversions of yourself. In her memory, I pursue medicine and the psychology that makes connecting to people like her so important. She'd had many roles before her death: she was a dental technician, she was an immigrant, she was my Aunty. But most importantly, she was human. I will not limit her to her sickness, her mental health, or her needs. Aunty Vinh, like so many others, was beautiful, kind, and lovable even when she was none of these things. Though she’s gone now, I won’t forget her kindness. I can’t forget her because I see her in everyone, in all our kindness, our faults, and in every vulnerable way we reveal ourselves to the world.

I look at myself through my mother's eyes sometimes, in the unavoidable ways my gaze has been formed by her view. I look at the lines across my thighs, where I’d rapidly lost 10 pounds when I was eight because she’d told me I was too chubby. I look at the pits in my skin, just like hers, that I’d scarred into my nose at the anxiety of being seen with blackheads. My body feels foreign, as foreign as the future I know I must fulfill. I think of my brother, her son, with autism so severe that he’ll never be seen as just another boy. I think of childhood dreams I’d given up so quickly for profitable professions that'll provide for him. For the longest time, I turned my gaze from all these things that hurt me, into work and school and whatever mindless fiction could distract me from my future and who I was. I can't look at my mother, myself, or anyone I’d consider close to me with love. When my aunt died, the person who claimed she loved me the most, I felt nothing, numbness when I looked at her still body and made-up face. She was cold, dead, and was still unable to stir the sorrow I’d expected to feel when she’d been wasting away months before. I can’t mourn her; I never will because I won't forget when she’d called for me to go to sleep at 1:00 a.m., waking my mother to beat me bruised for wanting to use what little free time I'd had to read in peace. It’s terrible, so terrible being unable to summon the intense devotion everyone asks of a student like me, that died when I discovered I couldn’t focus on homework anymore, that died when my aunt was cremated. I’m left with the lingering question, the sinking feeling I’ve circumvented for so long: Who am I when not with you? When asked to stand for my ideals, vices, and values, who am I? I disassociate from what happened, what's still happening when this year, my mother had ripped my hair clip from my head and hacked at my tresses with safety scissors after months of hounding me to cut my hair. I can do nothing but avert my gaze, staring at the clumps of hair littering our dining room floor. I carry my sadness with me, an almost inescapable aspect of myself. I’ve taken that fear in every search, interaction, and memory I have about those around me. I realize I may never escape my fear or past. Instead, I find myself in all the aspects I’d once kept at arm’s length. I’m smart, with an excellent memory when not avoiding what I remember. I’m funny when I allow myself to say what I think. But when these characteristics fade away, I finally face myself; I find the same person I’ve always been. I am just me, without pretense and without expectation. I work towards a future I don’t fully understand, but I do so with full knowledge of what's led me to this path. I'm trying now, to love. I'm trying to give those around me the medication they need, the comforting warmth of a hug, and the acceptance I ache for as well. From pursuing medicine and psychology, I want to offer not only a clinical view of the human condition but to expose the humanity behind suicide prevention. You can't tear me from my trauma, as much as the both of us try. But you can love me, so I may love you.

When I was young, I was a math prodigy. I filled workbooks my parents bought me with answers, spent hours doing mindless multiplication and division in first grade, and was met with appreciative looks before they returned their gazes to my brother. I was the “math whiz”, to whom math was as natural as waiting for my mom to come home. When you're young, life is countable. When you’re to split a pie, you learn fractions. Once you know multiplication tables, you know you’ve got 30 minutes to eat 3/8ths of a slice. The world is concrete and math is your friend, who’s there for you after classmates leave and your parents work long hours into the night. Math is reliable, transparent, and as familiar as your mother’s urging you into the quiet of her closet to finish your workbook. And suddenly, the world expands. I'm taught percentages, exponential growth, and taxes, all of which I could have never imagined. Math wasn’t familiar, not some friend enamored with my mundane discoveries. Instead, math was cold and unfeeling, an entity that couldn't understand my confusion. As my father began to teach me math, I couldn't escape feelings of inadequacy over being unable to understand math innately, instantly. I hated math because it made me feel hollow and stupid, feelings that continue to follow me today. I had no friends, isolated by my time spent doing homework, my brother’s condition, and my inability to connect with others. With the advent of adolescence, I was trapped by all I didn't know, in parents I couldn't please, and math growing more elusive. I struggle with math. The equations are extensive, the concepts are too conceptual, and the numbers are irrational. Why do I try to understand anyway? What makes math both comforting and disconcerting? The truth is, I’m bad at letting go of what I don’t understand. I’m bad at letting go of the things that hurt me, that won’t leave me alone. I don’t like the struggle and I hate everyone who claims the struggle is the best part of learning. It’s not, no matter how hard all my calculations, papers, and test grades try to convince me otherwise. Truthfully, I’m hurting just as bad for the answers to my questions. I stare into the sun for too long, thinking about the path light has traveled to stain itself behind my eyelids. I stand by the oak next to the physics classroom, watching the wind drag on falling leaves, and consider the force that stabilizes me is the same one controlling their slow, spiraling descent. I lean my head against the window of my father’s car, asking how many gallons of gas it takes to drive us to school, and how many miles it is to get from here to his office. I think about my mother who teaches me math, who understands it all perfectly, but who can’t understand my confusion. I’m bad at letting things go, at letting people go, who hurt me. I run after them, breathless and bewildered because I’m selfish. I want to know everything, to know everyone. I want to understand the gravity sticking my feet to the cement, the risk and reward my father weighs on his morning drives, and what goes on in my mother’s mind. I want to know math as my friend, as someone who'd never left me. Once again, I want to see the world through familiar eyes, transparent recognition, and familiar love of the unknown. I want to see math now as it truly is and as math has always been.

My brother is someone outside my range of understanding. When he talks, his words slur as though he’s never spoken. His eyes are unfocused as he presses his iPad at full volume to his ear, drowning out sounds. When asked a question, my mother will feed him answers, with him parroting her words with blind devotion. In devotion, he acts in exacting accordance with my parents’ wishes. In devotion, I become someone who must understand my brother and provide for the future, exactly as my parents wish. When we go out, side by side, my brother towers over me as I corral him into silence. Vanishing from sight, we retreat into the rooms of foreign houses, squirrel away in the corners of the couch, and make ourselves the family cryptids. And cryptids we are, with our wide-eyed stares at those who intrude, the frightening rumors of the party-goers outside scaring us from socialization. In these spaces where we seldom surface, appearances are everything. To family, friends, and strangers, my brother tears my sister and me from interaction. They regard us with love and pity, but these supposed loving looks vanish just as quickly as my brother can’t sit still, refuses the traditional Vietnamese food they’d set the table with, and is still not “cured” of his autism. To them, he is unpredictable and unknowable, whose social inabilities are difficult and will continue to be difficult. The truth is unavoidable: my brother is something foreign to even those who love him, something both frightening and frightened in the future when he will loom over my sister and me as we scramble to take care of the family. When I look at my brother, I see the same boy. I see someone who, when asked to show a happy face, will give you the biggest smile he can manage. I look for someone who upon presentation of food he doesn’t like, will not just shove it from himself but from your hand to protect you from this foreign food. I see a coward, who is scared of getting on buses, planes, and rollercoasters. I watch that same happiest face morph into total, overwhelming fear of the world. I see a boy in the body of a teenager, who's not quite small enough to be a child and will never be old enough to be without our support. I must admit, the weight of my brother is massive and constant. Knowing he needs someone to bring in as much money as possible to continue his speech therapy and schooling, I gave up my career aspirations. Trying to save money for the family, I’ve grown to live as austere as I can manage. Watching my parents struggle with his busy schedules, I gave up clubs and afterschool sports so they go as quickly as they could back to him. And yet, this weight is inseparable from my family’s love for him. When I see others like him, I understand their struggle and support them as best. I go to my future college, knowing the course I’ve picked will provide for us all. I’m frightened at this future, but this is the future I’ve chosen to protect my brother because I want to protect his health, his mind, and his aspirations as best I can, even if I may never understand them. Though I may never understand him, I love him for all the ways he is devoted to my family, to the thousands of hours he sits to learn speech, and to the small, scared boy who has persevered through this frightening, foreign world.