My Children Are Not My Savings

After the declaration of our new relationship status, Victor and I spent the evening having a simple conversation while drinking. We have some plans for a date. Simply put, I will also be a 'customer' in his café.

Victor drove me home to the boarding house around 12 p.m. I feel good about the development of this situation. I feel that finally the void in my life is filled. I don't pray for the future, I enjoy the present. So, whatever will happen later, I will face it later.

The tarot reader's remarks are true. A week before tonight, I opened a YouTube channel of tarot readers. I listened to tarot readings related to career, fortune, and romantic relationships.

"Someone from the past is coming. That person felt guilty about what happened in the past and asked to reconnect. Take advantage of this reconciliation to build healthy relationships," the tarot reader said.

My forehead furrowed at the time. Who is the figure from the past who will come and invite me to reconnect? All this time I have no ex. I'm a 30-year-old girl who has no ex! So who is the figure from the past who will take me back to reconnect? What does this reconnection mean just being friends? There are some figures who used to be very familiar as friends slowly disappearing and never giving news. They never asked how I was doing either. Even if I did the promotion of my recently published book, none of them congratulated me. It's not like when they need money.

Finally to calm my mind, I just believe that they are not as active on social media as I am. That's it.

Those tarot reader words made me reflect on who would come and get me back in touch? Right now I'm not even thinking about being in a serious relationship with someone. I thought I would never open my heart to anyone. The problem is because I don't believe that there is actually anyone who needs me.

However, when I saw Victor in the café that day. The voice inside my head tells me, he's the one from the past that the tarot reader is referring to.

Today it seems that one of those tarot readers' prophecies came true. Do I need to celebrate?

I walked up the stairs to my room cheerfully, but when I opened the door of the room, something hit my happiness. This scene I saw was mentally disturbing.

I saw that my sister was already asleep. All of a sudden everything became heavy again. It was as if the responsibility that weighed as heavy as the mountain had been briefly lifted off my shoulders was now restored again.

I took a deep breath. I don't know anymore which part is getting narrower and narrower, I just feel cramped. From the past until now, I wanted to have my own private room, but it has never happened.

Since my sister was born, I have always shared a room with her. My father and mother didn't know how to pay attention to the growing child. They don't provide privacy.

I always assumed this situation happened because they couldn't provide the room for me. They were too poor to be unable to build a room for me.

When I went to college. In fact, I can't have my own room either. I share it with someone to make the rent cheaper. When I had graduated and worked, my sister caught up here and we started living in the same room again.

I sat on the floor. My joy of having a boyfriend and having just had dinner on the rooftop and feeling romantic was eclipsed by the reality that was on the horizon.

Everything that had just happened with Victor felt like a dream. It felt like all of that was just a hallucination of my mind.

I came to feel that my life was someone's spectacle somewhere. That person has a special ticket, the power to make the happiness I feel short of.

I went to the bathroom after putting down my bag. In the bathroom, I squatted because all of a sudden I thought my life hadn't progressed. I've been working hard since long ago until now. However, it's just this way my life is. I listened to tarot shows because there was hope in them. I know, what tarot readers are saying is not necessarily a reality. It's also hard to believe that what a tarot fortune teller reads will come true. However, I felt that someone was asking me to talk and giving me what I wanted to feel. That's why I'm still listening to it. You see, if that's not the case, maybe I'm already depressed. It occurred to me that dying is the easiest declaration to free myself from all the responsibilities placed on me.

I often wonder why this happened to me? Is it just me who is charged with this kind of responsibility? Am I my parents' savings? Am I an ATM for my sister?

Every day, I try to get those questions out of my mind so I can fight back. It's like a runner getting used to the weights being pulled on legs, waist, and shoulders.

Sometimes,I imagine myself like Rock Lee, a fictional character in the manga and anime series Naruto. Rock Lee is a representation of a weakness that sticks tens of kilos of weight on his legs. With that load of tens of kilos he managed to become a ninja. All out of habit. Rock Lee managed to train his body and mind to get used to carrying heavy loads.

Every morning I always reaffirm my purpose in life so that I don't blame the situation. The affirmations I did were intended so that I could always make obstacles as confirmation that my life choices were correct, that my dreams were so high that the difficulties I had to conquer were multi-layered. It's like a game. I always have to be able to conquer the challenges in each level to reach the grand prize.

"What can I make," I whispered to myself.

"The biggest challenge is actually in my own mind. If I can't conquer all these negative thoughts, I lose and definitely can't work alone write a novel. Let alone being a novelist, completing the task from the client alone I must have failed. If you want to get something big, then I have to dare to flare up big too."

I made my lips smile. I took a breath and exhaled quietly. In my heart I was strong that I was willing to this state of affairs. I must still be able to survive and move on with life for the sake of being what I want to be. At this time, I can't show my selfishness. Maybe it's because I'm trying to be a good person. I don't want to get into the class of people who ignore the family. My heart can't do it. Even if this is difficult, since it is the right way, let's do it all out.

Later when I graduated, the pain of being this sandwich generation will have to stop at me. If I get married and have children, my children must not feel the suffering I feel. My children are not my savings and my children should also know that they should not rely on their brother's or sister's finances. They must be independent children, who can help each other, and at the same time are talented so that they can help others, not be a burden on their siblings.