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   Nine years had passed before I set foot in the country I called home for my entire childhood. A combination of bad decisions, unresolved resentment and overall negative situations kept me away, or let's say not motivated to go back too soon. 

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It's not really a secret that my relationship with my father has not always been a healthy one. You see, in his eyes I was probably the one kid who could make the mistakes he did, the one child he wanted to help the most, in his own way. I was the rebel, the musician, the poet, the dreamer, simply put:<b> the one that question the path that was told to me I had to follow.</b>

<h1>What Engineering Career do you want?</h1>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm a year away from graduating high school, and this is how the conversation got started. It's not if I want to be an Engineer, it's not if I even want to go to college (yeah I know, but that's another post altogether). The question was simply <b><i>"What kind of Engineer do you want to be?"</i></b>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm not upset about this, at least not anymore. In the mind of my father the only way to triumph in life is to graduate from a prestigious university with an Engineering degree, get a job and work your way to wealth. The problem is, I did not see it that way, and I still don't.

<h1>But you like computers!!</h1>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And I still do, as a matter of fact, there is not a day that goes by that I don't use them to make a living. But I still don't think the choice was not mine to make. I did trick myself, and even gave it a good go, at age 17 I got into a prestigious University and took all the calculus & physics classes a human could ever need. I'm good at math, I actually like it, but I did not want to be an Engineer... for What? for Who? 

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I remember vividly as if it happened yesterday a dream-destroying conversation I once had with an Engineer. You see, I took an internship position one summer at a software firm, and helped develop some php/mysql applications. I found it fun, the challenge kept me engaged, and maybe the fact that there was no money involved kept my emotions removed.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The head Engineer of the project impressed with my coding skills asked me where I was going to study. I remember saying... <b><i>"Well... I've been thinking of moving to the US, and following a musical career"</i></b>.... she laughed, she thought I was joking, and I played it off as if I was... I was embarrassed.

<h1>So I left...</h1>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Why would I stay? nothing had gone right, I was not happy and to top it off, the title I was pursuing was going to hang on a wall just to boost my dad's ego. So, I took a leap of faith, I left, and the six months to follow after I arrived in LA were some of the darkest times in my life, but all I could think of was... <b><i>"Well at least now.... now... I'm the one in control..."</i></b>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I think the story after those events can be guessed, even by people who just stumble on this post and know nothing about me. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes, but with time things worked themselves out somehow.  


<h1>I missed home.. or</h1>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;At the very least I needed closure, I needed to find out if I had grown up... So I decided to go back, just to visit, just shy of a decade later. I decided it was time to have a conversation with my father, to let him know that even though I probably will never truly understand him, I still wanted what was best for him, and at the very least for him to see me as me.

<h1>I think he found the book by accident</h1>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;But when he gifted me this little book, I knew he did not see me as the little kid who refused to grow up. He did not see a rebel who just wanted to go against his father's wishes.. he just didn't know how to say this to me with words.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So he gave me this little book...  and it said it all...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt106ojXPyE
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(credit for the video to: Facing History and Ourselves youtube channel)