If there’s one misconception in life that I had problem unbelieving is this – OFWs are rich.
Why you may ask?
I didn’t grow up rich. For the most part of my childhood, my mom and dad had to rent a house and lived paycheck to paycheck. It wasn’t until my teenage years where we were able to purchase a house on our own, and it wasn’t till my late 20s when we were able to purchase a car and a house.
We weren’t in a situation where we have “nothing,” but we were also in a situation where we all hoped we had things, not just some of them.
I’ve always believed OFWs were rich because evert OFW I knew had huge houses. They had kids who had the latest gadgets, kids who were driving fancy bicycles and motorbikes. They always had the straightest hair, the coolest notebooks, the newest laptops and so on.
As a kid, I was always gutted I never had those. To be completely honest, there was a huge chunk part of my brain just wondering why my parents never even tried working abroad. It was insane. Most people in my extended family did, why didn’t they? We could have been living in a nicer house, we could’ve been driving a car already, we could’ve paid all of our debts.
I’m gonna lie if I said I never got mad at the fact. There’s something frustrating about not being smart enough to get a scholarship, so the best thing you have to have is money to finish school.
I had to send out promissory notes multiple times because I missed the payment period. I had to opt out of some trips because they were too expensive. When I ask my parents to buy me something for school, it makes a huge dent on our finances.
I’ve always wondered then, but now, I’m making money on my own, and I’m able to give back to my parents, it makes sense why they didn’t do it.
Time is not something you can get back, and although we got by, even though my parents were pessimistic about it, we did still, and we did it under one roof, together.
Now, I wouldn’t say everything is chill and easy, but at least for me, we’re at that point in our lives where we know it’s time to build a life for us. There are no regrets on their part for not leaving, there are not much regrets in my part for starting a life now, I mean, as I shouldn’t, I’m almost 30 now.
If only our home country gave enough for us to survive, there wouldn’t be any questions about staying or leaving.
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