The Difference Between Me and a Refugee Is Luck

The Kind of Leaving I Know

In 2006, my family left Indonesia. Not because of war. Not because of bombs. Just because my parents wanted a better future for us. That kind of leaving was stressful, but it was still a choice. We weren’t running from death. We were running toward opportunity.

But the riots of 1998 were still fresh in their memory, the chaos, the violence, the reminder that safety could vanish overnight. Maybe that’s why stability mattered so much to them. Why “opportunity” wasn’t just about success but about security.

The hardest part? Money. Singapore was expensive. My parents worked harder than ever just to keep us afloat.

Meanwhile, I was adapting faster than they were. New school. New culture. New rhythm. That’s the parent–child gap: parents sacrifice, kids adjust. Both carry guilt in different ways.

It wasn’t easy. But there was always hope.

And here’s the truth that humbles me: even being born into this family, in this country, at this time, that was luck too. None of us earn our birthplace, parents, ethnicity, or circumstances.

That’s what makes privilege feel so fragile: you didn’t choose it, and neither did they.

The Kind of Leaving I’ll Never Understand

Then there’s the other kind of leaving, the kind I’ll never fully understand because I didn’t live it.

The kind where you don’t plan. You don’t pack. You just run. The kind where your house turns to rubble. Where your kids learn the sound of airstrikes before they learn the sound of peace.

That’s not migration. That’s survival.

Teachers become cleaners. Doctors become waiters. Not because they forgot who they were, but because survival doesn’t care about your degree.

Children grow up carrying two worlds. The trauma their parents left behind and the pressure to fit into a new one that stares at them like outsiders.

That kind of leaving doesn’t just scar families. It scars generations.

The Thread That Separates Us

And that’s when it hits me: the only difference between their story and mine is luck.

Luck decided my parents could leave for opportunity, not survival. Luck decided I grew up stressed about exams, not checkpoints. Some are born into passports that open borders, others into passports that trap. Some inherit safety, others inherit war. Some inherit money, others inherit hunger.

I didn’t deserve safety more than anyone else. I just had it. And they didn’t.

Gaza, Right Now

And while I sit here writing this, Gaza is burning.

But here’s the part that cuts even deeper: they can’t even leave. Not even if they want to. Not even if they have the money.

The borders are shut. The exits are blocked. Two million people locked inside a strip of land with bombs falling, food gone, and water cut. Families there aren’t choosing between staying or leaving. They’re choosing between waiting, hiding, and praying.

That’s not migration. That’s a prison with no exit. Gaza is not the only place. The world is scattered with families who fled. Rohingya boats, Afghan roads, Syrian camps. Different maps, same wound.

The Unfairness

And it makes me stop. Because these are humans, just like us.

They laugh at dumb memes. They fight with their siblings. They flirt. They dream. They plan futures that might never exist. But their reality? Worlds apart. Some of us scroll TikTok in bed, stressing about iced coffee orders. Others are digging their children out of rubble.

We share trains and streets with people who fled war, but we rarely share eye contact. Survival becomes invisible when it’s not yours.

And honestly, it makes me wrestle with God a little. Like…what is this supposed to mean? Why give us the same hearts and lungs but such different lives?

I know people say there’s a bigger plan, and maybe there is. But it’s hard not to ask. But from where I’m standing, it feels uneven. Maybe faith means holding both gratitude and confusion at the same time. It’s humbling. And a little frightening to admit out loud.

The Wound of Leaving

Not all leaving is the same. Some of us leave for more. Some of us leave just to live. And some don’t even get the chance to leave at all. But every kind of leaving carries a wound.

For me, it was stability. For others, it’s dignity. For some, it’s family members they’ll never see again.

Leaving always costs something. Safety doesn’t come free. It costs parents who swallow their pride and start over. It costs kids who grow up carrying two worlds at once.

What That Means For Me

When I think about that, all my problems shrink. The noise in my head. The fear of disappointing people. The way I sometimes move through life on autopilot.

It’s not that my struggles don’t matter. They do. But compared to someone who can’t even step outside without risking their life? Yeah, it feels smaller.

Safety feels permanent until it isn’t. History is full of families who thought they were safe until, overnight, they weren’t. Refugees aren’t born different from us. They just woke up one day, and their lives were split in two.

And it makes me realize: if I get freedom, I better not waste it.
Not on chasing meaningless stuff. Not on living a life that feeds everyone else but starves me.

Luck demands empathy, not arrogance.

Luck demands that if I get to live freely, I live with meaning.

Because at the end of the day, money and status don’t feed your soul. Meaning does. And if others are forced to fight just to survive, the least I can do is actually live.

Because what a shame it would be to waste freedom when so many would give anything just to have it.

Diena Fuji writes from the in-between — between cities, cultures, and versions of herself. She explores identity, intimacy, and detachment with the precision of someone who feels deeply — but doesn’t flinch. Multilingual, multi-city, always a little out of reach.