Half the income, and the first full night's sleep in years

At twenty-seven he left the city. Four years in Saigon packed down into a few cardboard boxes, and ahead of him a small coffee garden in Bảo Lộc and an income cut clean in half. That first morning outside, mist still sitting on the leaves, he stood there a long while — unsure what to do with all the empty time he had just made for himself.

The message came one evening, from his closest friend: what a waste of a degree. He read it and didn't reply. What hurt wasn't the sentence — it was realising he had thought exactly the same thing about himself, every day for four years. That measuring stick hadn't arrived with his friend. He'd been holding it a long time, using it on everything, including the nights he never slept through.

Three months in, he slept straight through to morning. The first feeling wasn't relief; it was strangeness. Strange enough that he sat there trying to remember the last time it had happened. Then it landed: for four years he hadn't known he was exhausted, because he assumed everyone was. Stay tired long enough and it stops registering as tired — and nobody thinks to fix something that feels normal.

His mother called and asked when he was going back to the city. He meant to tell her about those four years, to set her mind at ease, but nothing came — there was nothing to tell. Later he understood she wasn't pushing. She was checking that he had no regrets. The one still unsure, it turned out, was him. He gave her his answer, then stood out in the yard a while under the one yellow bulb.

Those four years were worth something to them. This is my life. I set the measure.

He isn't richer. It's just the first time his life has looked like him. And the yardstick you're using on yourself — is it yours, or did you borrow it from someone and forget to give it back?