I learnt this on one morning in 2007 in class. I was in my junior secondary class and my English teacher had come in to ask for our parents' occupations.
It scared me. Every kid who answered before me seemed to have parents with the kind of jobs you could brag about. And when it got to my turn to tell, I began to tremble in fear. But I said it after all and I felt so much better.
My teacher would later begin to explain what it means to be a chip off the old block. Like, Bianca's mother was/is an actress and she hoped to become one after school too.
I didn't know what I wanted to do, to be. And because so many other kids said they wanted to be what their parents were, I said the same too. I would be a female carpenter and an electrician for those were and are still some of what my father does.
My teacher said it like it was important to take up from our parents and I took it seriously. I felt trapped. Like I was unlucky and the only way out would be to be patient to do this life to the end and begin again.
I would begin to watch my father work - make seats, work in a house and all. And when he was away, I would use his work tools to learn on my own. It wasn't long before I began to make ugly-looking seats that never lasted for more than two hours straight. But I never stopped. I wanted to be like my father.
I was scared of electrics and so, I focused on just being a carpenter but when that wouldn't work, I tried to learn to connect wires. I didn't learn for a long time before I got electrocuted once and I damned the whole thing. I didn't care about being any chip off the old block anymore.
But by the time I damned it all, I was beginning to get ideas on the things I could be. A doctor like my father wanted. A singer because I thought my voice was a thing. They were just about it but changes began to come with time.
There are no moral lessons. I just watched my father in a way that I haven't in a long time and I remembered this story.
