MY DAD NEVER GOT THAT MEMO.

For my dad, who always knew.

On the paper in front of me, I wrote the word princess with my whole unfiltered heart.

It was first grade. The assignment was simple: what do you want to be when you grow up? The boy next to me looked over and laughed. He said it was a stupid idea. When I told the teacher, she quickly told me to tell him that stupid was a bad word — before turning her attention back to another student. I knew it wouldn’t work. I tried anyway. He kept laughing.

I immediately wanted to disappear.

Don’t give anyone the chance to laugh at you again.

To survive, you stay quiet.

The boy’s laugh followed me further than I expected.

Art was the last class of the day in seventh grade, and I always looked forward to it. One day the teacher was demonstrating how to create shading on 3D forms. While classmates at my table were chatting, I had my head down over my oil pastels. A girl next to me turned to her friend and said matter-of-factly: “Brianna is really quiet.” I looked up from my drawing briefly and saw people staring at me. Was I supposed to defend myself? Prove I had something to say? I hesitated before returning to my shading.

Even in my silence, I was too much.

I got so good at staying quiet that I almost forgot I had something to say.

Whenever I think of my dad, I picture him dancing. Usually reggae jams are blasting from the kitchen and my dad is improvising moves that make you want to join in. A UB40 or Shaggy song comes on and suddenly the kitchen becomes a ballroom. He’d call me over and we’d dance together, both of us wearing that same wide smile without realizing it. Small ordinary moments. The ones I’d go back to first.

Nowadays when he calls me over I always say yes.

A princess with her father the king.

The sun was setting over the water in Isla de Gigantes. My dad and I had argued and I’d stepped away to find my breath. As I headed back, he was already making his way toward me.

“Hey, remember me?” he said.

He looked at me and said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world:

I know you’re doing the best you can.

This is who he’s always been for me. Whether we’re in the middle of chaos or calm, he sets aside his own feelings to make space for mine. He’s the one who holds the bigger version of me, even when I struggle to hold it myself.

Maybe you have someone like this. Someone who sees you so clearly and so consistently that their belief in you becomes a place you can return to when you’ve lost your own.

I was typing on the computer when the house lights suddenly shut off and the wifi went down. Within minutes the room was already thick with heat. My dad headed out back to fix the AC. As he put on his shoes, he looked up and said — “I gotta hurry up so my queen and my princess won’t suffer in the heat!”

I laughed before I realized what he’d called me.

I looked up from my screen at the empty doorway.

I sat with it for a moment. Princess.

I thought about a little girl in first grade who wrote that word on a piece of paper with her whole unfiltered heart. Who wanted to disappear when someone laughed at her for it. Who learned to stay quiet instead.

My dad never got that memo.

I’ve been a princess all along.

That’s how he sees me.

That’s how he’s always seen me.

You were never too much either. You were always exactly enough. Someone out there already knows it. And on the days you forget — I hope you find your way back to them.