The money was supposed to bring us closer. It did. Just not in the direction I thought.
Every time one of my siblings calls, my first thought is how much. I hate that about myself more than almost anything.
My younger sister texted me last month. "Hey can I ask you something." My stomach dropped before I even opened the message. Eight hundred bucks. Timing belt on her car. She's a teacher's aide making barely enough to cover rent. Of course she called me. I have it. Took me forty seconds to send it.
But something shifted a couple years ago and I can't unshift it.
When I was broke, delivering burritos at 35 and sleeping in my childhood bedroom, nobody in my family wanted anything from me. Because I had nothing to want. The calls were just calls. Hey, did you eat. Come over Sunday. Mom made lumpia.
Now I'm the one who made it. One of nine kids. Parents who left the Philippines and broke their bodies working so we'd have a shot. And out of all of us, I'm the one sending money from a laptop in a different country every month. That changes things in ways nobody warns you about.
That's the trap. When you become the one in your family who has more than enough, your money becomes everyone's emergency fund. Not because they're greedy. Because they love you and the need is real and asking you is easier than asking a bank. And over time, every phone call gets this tiny film over it. This flinch you can't turn off. You start hearing dollar signs in "can we talk" even when there aren't any.
I've sent money to four siblings this year. Rent gaps. A medical bill. A damn security deposit. All reasonable. All amounts I'd never notice missing. Every single one of them grateful in a way that made me feel worse, not better.
Because I've started keeping score. Not on paper. In my head. My brother calls on a Saturday to talk about the Dodgers and part of me is just waiting for the ask. My sister sends a photo of her kid's Halloween costume and I catch myself thinking "okay so we're good right now." Like closeness has become a ledger and I'm tracking deposits and withdrawals.
My dad would be disgusted if he could hear my thoughts. He drove trucks six days a week and still wired money to cousins back in Quezon City. Never flinched. Never counted. Giving wasn't a category in his budget. It was just what you did.
But he was giving from the same level everyone else was standing on. Broke helping broke. There's a dignity in that. Nobody feels small asking when everyone is asking everyone.
I'm giving from somewhere else now. Above. And it changes the physics of every interaction. My sister didn't text our other brothers about the timing belt. She texted me. That's practical. It also means something, and what it means doesn't feel like closeness.
You've felt some version of this. Maybe you're the friend in your circle who's doing well and someone asks to borrow money and you say yes and then you notice you're watching what they order at dinner the following week. Maybe a family member thanks you for something and the gratitude is so heavy it reshapes the whole relationship. Maybe you've stopped answering certain calls on the first ring because you need a second to brace yourself.
This was supposed to be the part where the money made everything easier. That was the whole pitch. Build something, earn enough, take care of your people without stress. Nobody mentions that "without stress" is the part that doesn't work. Because you do stress about it. Every damn time.
I called my sister last week for no reason. Just to talk. She sounded surprised. We talked for forty minutes about her students, a guy she's been seeing, a show she can't stop watching. Normal stuff. The best conversation we'd had in a year.
Right before she hung up she said "I feel like we never just talk anymore."
She noticed too.
I don't have this one solved. I can't un-earn the money and I don't want to. But I'm trying to call when nobody needs me to. Trying to be the brother before the backup plan. Trying to flood the line with enough nothing conversations that the next time she texts "can I ask you something" my gut doesn't clench before I finish reading.
The money was supposed to bring us closer. It did. Just not in the direction I thought.
— Best, Jose
