I had learned to be frugal from a young age, understanding the true value of money early on.
Clutching the tiny remnant of my savings in my palm, I set out into the streets, determined to find work immediately.
I harbored no grand ambitions for a bright future. All I wanted was to live quietly, safely tucked away from danger.
Yet even as I grew older, the job hunt didn’t get any easier.
My resolve was firm, but determination alone changed nothing.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to keep struggling just to stay alive.
It was then that I truly felt the crushing weight of how hard it was for a woman to make a living.
In that moment, I forgave my mother completely.
For women at the bottom of society, there were almost no other paths open to them—they were inevitably pushed toward the very road she had taken.
Every fiber of my being resisted, refusing to step onto that dead-end path right away.
Yet a cold clarity settled over me: that path was waiting for me just up ahead, quiet and inevitable.
The harder I struggled to break free, the thicker the terror in my chest became.
What little hope I had left felt like the faint, fragile light of a new moon, ready to vanish at any moment.
As week after week dragged on, that hope was slowly ground down to nothing.
Cornered with nowhere left to turn, I joined a group of young women waiting to be inspected at a small diner.
It was a unassuming little place, run by an arrogant, overbearing boss.
None of us girls looked bad, and every one of us had finished elementary school.
Yet there we stood like servants waiting for charity, standing silently while the owner scrutinized us like merchandise.
The coarse, arrogant man finally pointed his finger at me.
“You,” he said lazily. “You’ll do.”
I felt zero gratitude toward him, yet a strange, bitter sense of relief washed over me in that instant.
The other girls looked on with envy.
Some turned away with reddened eyes, while others muttered sharp curses under their breath as they left.
Standing there, I realized with brutal clarity just how cheap and worthless a poor woman’s life truly was.