Dad, i want to make you proud of me

I think now that i'm a twenty something year old and i've gotten a lot more mature, my parents really matter to me a lot. Especially making them proud. Especially making my father proud. This never mattered to me until now because I've always been so self-centered ( and arguably still am ). It's really true what they say about gaining this whole new perspective about your parents when you mature. You start to see them in a new light and actually for once truly appreciate the stuff that they've gone through to raise you. When it comes down to the bones of it, i want my parents to approve of everything that i do. I know that's impossible, i mean they are parents but life just doesn't feel right when my parents don't feel right. Someone said to me that when you make peace with your parents, you make peace with life. My response is... absolutely.

I'm at peace when my father is at peace with what i am doing. I admit that phone calls to ' tell ' him about a decision or life event is really a call for ' approval '. Instead of him saying something like,
" Ok that's cool " what i really want him to say is, " That's fantastic and I am fully supportive of that idea/thing/person ". But my dad isn't an expressive person so it's hard to get him to fully open up. It's the opposite with my mum though. She's far too happy to inform me on what she thinks about what  my life or the people that i'm spending time with. I wish i could be someone to make my dad proud. I mean that's just the guts of it. I want to make my dad tear up with happiness and proudness for me. I want to achieve great things and make him want to tell people at his work that his daughter did this or his daughter did that. I know that the sum of your life is not made up of obvious achievements like medals or accolades or awards or whatever, but let's be real. These are the sorts of things that most people value the most. I'm not sure if there is a limit to what i want to do, but i need the right accidents to happen to me.

My dad and I have a close relationship and now that my silly, rebellious teenage years are behind me, i feel like my whole life should be about 'repenting' for all the crap that i've inflicted upon him as a teenager. Drugs, Alcohol, Sneaking out, Shoplifting i've done everything. And although that's what most of us did, it's different when you have an Asian parent. They are so naive, the possibility of this stuff ever crossing their kids lives is just unthinkable to them. To this day, i am not sure if my dad hasn't seen my wrist tattoo or just pretends to not see it because ignorance is bliss. I think my objective in life is to make my dad proud. I know that's so nerdy, but this is really true. It used to be to be 'someone' to be a great 'writer' to achieve all this shit that really was about me. All i care about now is what my dad wants. All i care about now, is what i can do to make him go to bed at night and not worry about me and my life.