That 'unsettled feeling' — in 5 years, it may be too late.

Three years since I got placed here. The only Japanese I ever said to my supervisor was "arigatō gozaimasu," "sumimasen," "wakarimashita" — those three lines, that was it. When I lift a resident, the hernia in my lower back stabs. I got an MRI last winter. I showed the doctor's report to my supervisor and he just said, "Can you hang in there a bit more?"

At night I lay on the top bunk staring up, counting pain pills. How many tablets left, how many days until payday — that was the only math my head kept running.

If I said "I want to quit," I might lose my visa too — that's what I had convinced myself of. My sister's tuition. Mom's medication. The hundred thousand yen I wire home every month. What happens to them if that stops? — and so the only thing that ever came out of my mouth was "daijōbu desu."

One day in the break room, a senior who was also from Vietnam said, "Try consulting anonymously." Anonymous? I asked. "It means you don't have to give your name." That night, for the first time, I typed into my phone: "quit but visa."

"Kōjo," "shakai hokenryō," "jūminzei" — kanji I couldn't read marching across my payslip. For the first six months I just told myself, "Japan's system must be complicated." When I tried asking the manager, he laughed and said, "Maria-chan, Japanese still hard?" After that, I was too afraid to ask.

Two years in, another Filipino friend started working at the same chain. We got to talking about pay. "Mine is 1,200 yen an hour," she said. Mine was still 1,050. Same job, same years, same Japanese level.

I rushed to the bathroom and cried without making a sound. If I raised my voice, they might throw me out. "Your visa is tied to the company" — somewhere on my first day, someone had said that, or I thought they had. So I genuinely believed I'd have nowhere to go starting tomorrow. That day, too, I smiled and said "wakarimasen," and walked back to my room.

Only later did I learn — on a Specified Skilled Worker visa, you can move to another company if you meet the conditions. The option wasn't gone, I just hadn't known. When I did the math afterward, I'd lost more than 500,000 yen across those two years. Not "I should have asked." More like, "I didn't know there was anywhere to ask."

Sunday, 9 p.m. — the slot for video-calling Mom. On the other side of the screen, she asks, "Agung, have you lost weight?" "No, no, just busy. I'm fine." Half a year of that exact loop now.

Truth is, my stomach hurts after the night shift. My hands are wrecked from the grease, and in winter the skin cracks open. Two Indonesians on the same line just vanished from the workplace last month. No one tells you why. Every day I think it could be me next.

But if I told Mom the truth, she'd lose sleep over it. I haven't told my wife back home either, or the child I haven't even seen yet. Tell my boss at work? He'd come back with "hang in there." I know he would.

Then one morning, in the shower, it hit me. There isn't a single place on this earth where I can say what I actually feel. If there's a place inside my phone that will just listen — okay, let me start there. No one sees it. No one passes it on.

You don't have to
decide alone.
It's okay.