“Report Card”

I recently received a picture from my aunt that brought back a wave of memories—my kindergarten report card. It read:

“Isaak tries very hard to do his best work. He is in the top reading group. Isaak struggles to control his frustrations when things do not go his way. We will keep working on better choices.”

Even now, those words hit close to home. It was one of many report cards that followed the same tone—acknowledging my effort, but pointing out my emotional struggles. Frustration was always something I battled with growing up. When things didn’t go my way, it was like my world flipped upside down. But even then, I kept trying. I wanted to make friends. I wanted to understand. I wanted to learn, even if the traditional way of learning didn’t always fit how my mind worked.

Looking back, it’s clear that frustration wasn’t my weakness—it was my signal. It meant I cared. It meant I was deeply invested in wanting things to work, to make sense, to feel right. But without the right tools or understanding, that frustration often got the best of me.

Now, years later, I’ve begun to rewrite that story. I’ve learned that challenges don’t always need to be fought with emotion. Sometimes, they just need a pause—a moment to breathe, to think, to try something new. Instead of feeding into the negatives, I’m learning to ignore them and shift my focus to what could help the situation. Whether that’s stepping away, finding a creative solution, or just simply trying again tomorrow—I’ve found power in patience.

Growth doesn’t come from having everything figured out early on. It comes from failing, reflecting, and adapting. My learning journey was never straightforward, but I’ve come to realize it was perfectly human. The way I process the world is part of my story—not something to be fixed, but something to be understood.

And if I could go back and talk to that kindergartner trying to hold it together in a world that didn’t always make sense, I’d tell him: “You’re not broken. You’re just beginning.”