“ I am sorry to say, but I treat my kids as an investment”

She wasn’t saying it in anger. It was emphasized to me once again and it was just pure fact, something she tried to hide from the rest of her children but slipped out. I genuinely wondered if the rest of the children understood that fact.

I understood that long ago. The unspoken fact of our existence, so I left. I said goodbye to the privileged and comfortable life that I could have had then.

I wanted to build something that didn’t have a price tag attached, something that wouldn’t warrant “ She does it because of my help and connections.”

I lived with the humbler version of my family. We lived a simpler life without a price tag attached. We struggled so much but in hindsight, it was life worth living. There was no envy, no ROI, and family is just family.

I learned what it felt like to mess up without being seen as less, to be sick without being seen as a business liability and to never have to carefully walk on thread when talking to a person. I was simply existing in my antics.

Then, I ran out of money and needed help. I told myself it was going to be temporary. Take the money, once I am stable, return it back and to never seek her again.

But life has that funny twist. Rather than leaving, I sank deeper.

I am paying the interest from the money I borrowed though being part of the family. Now, I am suddenly managing their business, being the front face of the business, and getting told to network here and there. My actions became another line of item in the expense description. I was just a part of their quarterly business report and my action became an item in the invoice.

“ Don’t forget to take pictures for invoicing,” she told me.

I wasn’t used to all these. I used to exist with a mother who loves me dearly and never sees me as a ROI. I was used to a mother that would warmly welcome me with food and never criticizes the way I dress. I was used to a mother that lets me sleep as much as I wanted because she knows how hard I work. I was used to a mother that never rushed me and told all my secrets without the need to be analyzed or solved.

These days, I miss my family events, the get together with my family, the birthday dinner and things that a normal family would do.

It hasn’t been a year but it gets louder now that I wanted to leave once again.

“ Whenever you’re tired, I am one call away. And be strong, you're working for VOC” said my sister on a call one time.

My sister and I have words for it using colonial metaphors to describe our mother, VOC ( The Dutch East India Company that extracted everything from Indonesia and was the major colonizer in the country).

It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

And I was supposed to leave but.....

Seeing how easy some of my siblings had it, how easy it is to make $4-5k grand a month and how easy it is to be stayed at luxury hotels, and felt like money is just papers, I felt conflicted & those blinded me again.

Stupidly enough, I chose to be trapped.

I wanted to take a breather in comfort because I know, if I leave everything behind once again, it’s going to get extremely hard to survive.

It’s not that I am not capable of building something from 0 again. It’s just that I am still fairly exhausted. And I would sound really stupid to just strip away all the privileges I am experiencing right now. Then, going back to a life under poverty where climbing the ladder gets harder each day.

She knows this well enough. She offers the payment plans. She maintains me just enough to feel comfort and for me not leave. Only for me to be reminded that freedom is expensive.

And once again, I am being reminded of a goal I used to have, the kind of freedom I long for.