"I would like to propose a toast to our beloved daughter for securing the reporter job. We both know, how hard you worked for this and we are unbelievably proud of you. So cheers to that!" exclaimed mom, with tears in her eyes. She hugged me tightly, basically not letting me breathe, but I didn't mind it at all this time.
"Truly Juli, you did a great job. Would've liked to see you in the garage a bit more, but we'll get to that eventually, right?" wondered dad and patted me on the back. Just a few weeks ago, I graduated from university with an engineering degree and he was certainly hoping I'd become a part of his team immediately afterwards. I instead declined, as I wasn't sure if a job like a strategist would be something for me.
"Yeah, yeah, right. Every way I'll choose will always lead me back to racing." I smiled at him. Ever since I was old enough, my dad took me to almost every race if my mom was too occupied to look after me. I used to run around the hospitality and think of all the places I could hide if we ever played hide and seek in there. I was happy because I was having fun and exploring the whole paddock and he was happy he didn't have to hire a nanny for me. As a reward, he would actually play hide and seek with me sometimes. As I grew older, I stopped hiding and had been getting more and more into F1 to the point, where the paddock and Mercedes garage became my safe place, my only true home. So when I got the callback, that I got the job, I knew I was destined for this.