I’m sitting here, it’s 2 AM, and the hum of the fridge is usually a comfort, but tonight it just feels… loud. Like it’s reminding me of all the other machines I hear all day. The washers, the dryers, the steam press. That low, constant thrum. I got home maybe an hour ago, drove past all the perfect lawns with their sprinklers going, and I just… exist here now. I came here, to this country, to this town, because my parents said it was the best option. Back home, things weren’t getting better. Not really. They needed money for my younger brother’s school, for medicine for my grandmother. I was supposed to go to university, you know? I had plans. I had a whole folder on my laptop for art schools, saved pictures of campus greens and studio spaces. Now it just sits there, an icon I scroll past. Instead, I work at this industrial laundry. It’s in a big, plain building, tucked away near the highway, next to a warehouse that stores tires. Most of the people there don’t speak much English. I pick up little bits of their languages, they pick up a few of mine. We all understand the rhythm of the work though. Sort, wash, dry, fold, press. Over and over. The heat in there, especially near the dryers, it just saps you. I feel it drain out of me, like sweat, every single day. My hands are always rough, even with lotion. The money… the money is good enough. I send a good portion of it home every two weeks. My parents send me messages, little voice notes, saying thank you, telling me how much it helps. And it does. I know it does. My brother is doing well in school, my grandmother is getting her medication. That’s what matters. That’s what I tell myself. But then I see other people my age. Out at coffee shops with books, laughing with friends on a Tuesday afternoon. They have these lives that feel so… open. Like they’re just starting. And I’m already locked into this cycle. My entire schedule revolves around the laundry. My days off are for grocery shopping, doing my own laundry, trying to catch up on sleep. I try to make this little apartment feel like home, put up some pictures, but it just feels temporary. A place to sleep between shifts. Sometimes, late at night like this, I look up at the ceiling and just wonder. Was this the only way? Was there really no other path where I could have studied, learned, created? Where I could have done something else, something that felt like *me*? I remember drawing for hours, just getting lost in it. Now, the most creative thing I do is figure out the most efficient way to fold a fitted sheet. It’s not nothing, I guess, but it’s not… that. I don’t talk about this with anyone. My parents would worry, and they wouldn’t understand why I’m complaining when I’m helping them. My co-workers are just trying to get through the day too. And here, in this suburb, everyone seems so busy with their own lives. They wouldn’t get it. They see a young person, probably assume I’m just starting out, building something. They don’t see the constant weight of this obligation, the feeling that I traded my own future for theirs. It’s not regret, exactly. It’s more like a quiet observation. A data point in a very long experiment. This is my life now. This is the choice I made, or rather, the choice that was made for me that I accepted. And I just keep going. One load after another. One paycheck after another. And the dreams… they just stay in that folder, getting older, collecting digital dust. And sometimes, like tonight, I feel like I’m doing the same thing.