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Few things provide a sense of belonging more than a tight-knit family. I grew up the youngest brother in a family with four older sisters on a rural Nebraska farm. Financially secure and living an easy-going country lifestyle, it seemed I was blessed with the textbook ingredients for such a tight-knit family. The only problem was that since adolescence, belongingness was a concept I never really felt at all.
I loved riding in the tractor as a child. Since long before me, each male in my family farmed. Throughout grade school I felt destined to carry on the family legacy. But with each passing year, my interest in farming waned. By my early teenage years, I no longer listened in envy to the hours-long talks of farming at family gatherings. Instead, I would actively avoid such talks and pull out my Gameboy or long for the internet. I was apathetic to any interest of farming and had already begun my travel on a path away from several generations.
The sense of personal closeness with my family began to fade as I grew older alongside my diminishing interest in farming. Since my earliest memories of living with my four sisters, my parents would fight incessantly. We siblings turned to each other for support as divorce was constantly dangled above our heads like a menacing puppet. But as my sisters were much older than myself, they soon began to escape to college. One by one they left, and I was eventually left alone. By now, any concern for the sake of my parent’s marriage had evolved into apathy. They coexisted as glorified roommates and were bounded by the matrimonial concept of money than by love. I hated being enshrined in a constant feeling of tension at home and again sought a path away.
A path away from farming and a path away from the tension at home easily converged as one and became the track which guided my life through present. For what grew as a lack of belonging, I made up for in a sense of independence. I became engrossed with excelling academically. Beyond any academic pursuits, I delved myself into areas of science, social science, and technology. I was a self-described nerd and a complete foil to my stern, agrarian father. Farming was the passion of my father and each male ancestor before me; furthering my education was mine. Dedicated to my goal, I became the first male in my family to attend college, where I continued to excel.
Burying myself into my academic pursuits allowed me to escape from the disconnection at home into my own world. I set my own goals and sought to guide myself. Throughout my journey for ultimate independence, I was blessed with three nieces and two nephews. The feeling of being an uncle was something I had never expected. I was reminded of a warm, thriving family bond rather than the stale one I was used to. I had never before a chance to impact someone younger than I and was embodied with a feeling of maturation beyond my measured years. I realized that as important as my own pursuits were to me, so was my feeling as an uncle.
For long, I’ve been on my path away from everything and towards my world as I create it. My nieces and nephews have taught me how important it is to keep family in my world, no matter how disconnected I have felt in the past. I remember vividly when the parents of my eldest nephew had filed for divorce. My sister was verbally abused for years to the point of anorexia and attempted suicide while my nephew was always in the middle. The divorce was an overly drawn out money-driven legal battle, and again my nephew stood in the middle. What will always be ingrained in my head is the way he was touted in the middle as a sort of materialistic possession rather than a little boy who needed caring parents, separate or apart.
For though I care endlessly about each of my nieces and nephews, my nephew’s case struck me on a deeper level and wrought the ultimate connection between my personal aspirations and growing feeling of responsibility for my family. I have for some time been guiding my life towards a career in family law, in which I can have a direct impact in preventing the ill-treatment of juveniles in cases as my nephew’s. I bring to XYZ Law School a persistent work ethic and an undeterred drive to succeed fueled by a specific purpose. I’ve traveled one path throughout my life, and although sometimes changing slightly in direction, it now leads to the ultimate destination of a career in family law. However, until I reach that destination, I concentrate now on the miles that lay directly ahead of me: law school.
