I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I just… I can’t sleep. It’s 2 AM. My brain is just replaying it, every single detail, every goddamn syllable. It’s like a neurological loop, a compulsive rumination I can’t shut down. It was supposed to be a win. A huge win. My big shot. The proposal I’d been slaving over for months. Years, really, if you count the preparation, the groundwork, the endless nights trying to prove I wasn’t just… a product of nepotism. Not that anyone ever said it, but I felt it, every single day, every day, the pressure to exceed, to justify my very existence in this sector. This was it. The groundbreaking initiative that would put our firm on a completely new trajectory. And who better to present it to than my father? The former CEO. The legend. The man whose shadow I’ve been trying to emerge from since I was a child. He retired last year, just… stopped. Like a machine powering down. Everyone said it was his time. He deserved it. But I always knew it was more complex than that. More like a sudden disengagement. A complete cessation of interest in… everything. So I arranged the meeting. A formal sit-down. Not at the house, not a family dinner. This was business. Professional. I wanted him to see me, truly see me, as a peer. An executive. Not just his daughter, the one who still brings him the tea he likes, the one who still calls him *Baba*. I rehearsed. I practiced. I had every data point memorized, every projected ROI, every risk mitigation strategy. I was ready. He came into the conference room. Same sharp suit. Same impeccable posture. But his eyes… there was a blankness there. A kind of cognitive dissonance you can practically feel. I started. I launched into it, with all the energy I could muster. Passion. Conviction. I laid out the whole vision, the market analysis, the implementation phases. I paused, waiting for that familiar flicker of recognition, that critical engagement, the look he used to give me when I aced a presentation in college. And then he just… tilted his head. Just slightly. He looked at me, not with disdain, not with anger, but with a kind of mild curiosity. Like I was a new intern. “And who are you, again?” he said. Just like that. Calmly. My stomach just dropped. It was like a physical plummet. I froze. My throat seized up. I couldn’t speak. I could feel the blood drain from my face. My mother, who was there, she rushed over. She put a hand on his arm, her voice gentle, almost a whisper. “It’s *her*, dear. Our daughter. The one with the business, remember?” And he just smiled. A polite, distant smile. “Oh,” he said. “Right. Of course. Well, lovely presentation, young lady.” *Young lady.* It was a casual dismissal. A total erasure. I managed to finish the presentation. I don’t even know how. It was like I was watching myself from outside my own body, a dissociative experience. The words just came out. Automatically. My voice sounded flat. Robotic. I sat there, listening to my mother try to gently re-orient him, to explain who I was, to anchor him in reality, *our* reality. He just kept nodding, a vague, agreeable expression on his face. He even asked if I was new to the company. I felt… I don’t even know what I felt. Not sadness. Not anger, exactly. It was more like a profound sense of… object permanence failure. Like I had ceased to exist for him. Like all those years, all those expectations, all that striving, it just evaporated. He didn’t just forget my name. He forgot *me*. My entire identity as his child. As someone he had poured so much into, demanded so much from. It’s been a week. I haven’t really processed it. I feel hollow. Empty. Like I’m floating. Every single day, every day, I’ve tried to be the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect executive. To make them proud. To carry on the legacy. And for him, I’m just… a stranger. A pleasant face with a good presentation. It’s a complete re-evaluation of my entire sense of self, a complete shattering of my foundational attachment paradigms. What even is the point?