The Chrysalis Project | Rewrite (Slow)

1 | Minimum Wage

Do you know that moment when you both love and hate your job?

That bittersweet realization when you love and appreciate the job itself, but in all honesty, you'd rather be doing something else with your time. Nobody ever truly wishes to work part-time on a minimum wage after all.

Realizing my conflicted opinion is irrelevant regardless, for that my options were quite limited in perspective in the first place. I instinctively roll my eyes at the thought of my unhopeful future that is and will continue to be, full of sacrifices for the sake of earning a degree. I sigh deeply at my impending doom of having to pay back college debt among all other things related to adulthood. Suddenly that bittersweet feeling became a sour aftertaste left to spoil in my mouth.

Unfortunately, this outcome was a bitter result of my parents' death. All were left became their existing debt and the eventual surrender of all property and assets as collateral and repayment. What remained of our family was torn apart, with no connection or communication between my extended family from both sides of the family, my younger sister Scarlet and I were forced to live in an orphanage, then between a couple of foster families until I became a legal adult.

The fostering process made it most difficult for us to stay together during my adolescence; no foster family was really a good fit for the both of us, as Scarlet and I had a large age difference. Scarlet was still a baby at the time so the fostering process was almost instantaneous. However, I was already a teenager at the time, so not many foster families were willing to take both a baby and a teenager together under their care. I never really connected with any of my foster families, but I was grateful that they were generous enough to offer me a roof over my head and enough food for the day. I knew that most of them definitely signed up for the monetary gain of the foster family system, but at least they were not abusive nor manipulative. With their permission, I had also taken a couple of part-time jobs in the evenings during the week to ensure that when I became a legal adult, I would be able to take care of both myself and my own sister.

I had no friends, no support, and no kindness offered to me during those years. But I promised myself that as long as I am alive, I would never let homelessness and poverty get to us again. Although it was difficult at first to juggle both school and work, the promise to myself and to Scarlet was my emotional and mental anchor. It became the foundation of where I earned a special recommendation and direct admission to one of the most elite universities in the country once I graduated high school. With that opportunity, I proved to the orphanage and the local government that I was financially able to care for my sister and officially listed myself as her legal guardian so she would exit the foster system as well.

Fast forward a couple of years later, I'm in a safe place receiving one of the best education in the world in the city that never sleeps. Things were definitely getting better, but my special circumstances around my school admission and entrance scholarship had only covered part of my tuition fees. The hefty amount of money that I owed was to be paid after my graduation, where I was required to search only through the elite school's certified employment networks and discuss repayment plans with the school's coordination office in the future. I tried not to think about my financial health, but I knew deep down I was still in extreme poverty, and that I have to do whatever it takes to ensure that I graduate to the least.

So this was me – a part-time clerk at a used bookstore finishing my shift of the day.

"Fun," I said sarcastically while frantically flipping the pages of a book.

"Mold is no laughing matter," my boss George shouted at me from behind the counter, clearly not amused at my remarks, "I can't sell these books if they actually pose a health hazard, you know."