An opinionated breakdown of money’s meaning, role in society, and how it influences our decisions, habits, and lives.
When the world is burning down around you, where do you stand?
Do you stand tall, swinging wildly at the flames with a fire hose that can barely keep pressure? Or are you holding a garden hose, knowing full well it isn’t enough—but trying anyway? That’s how it feels most days. The fire isn’t just around us. It’s inside us. It’s in the bank account that keeps hitting zero. It’s in the sleepless nights where we stare at the ceiling wondering if tomorrow will finally be the day something changes.
But when you’re standing back-to-back with the one person who has always been there, the heat becomes bearable. Not easier. Not safer. Just bearable.
We hold each other up not because we have answers, but because collapsing would mean leaving the other one alone in the blaze. And that’s not an option. Even if our legs shake. Even if the fire sword of circumstance tries to push our heads down into the dirt. Even when we kneel, we lean into each other and rise again. It’s not cinematic. There’s no music swelling or credits rolling. Just two people trying to survive.
And yet, there’s pretending. Pretending everything is okay when everything is falling apart.
We look at each other, tears pushing to the surface, and we lie. We smile and say, “We’re okay.” We joke. We distract. We want to be the strong one so badly that we don’t admit when we’re falling apart inside. The truth is, we ask each other, “Are you okay?” knowing full well neither of us is. But the answer comes just the same: “Yeah. I’m fine.”
We carry questions like boulders on our backs: Why are we still struggling at our age? Why haven’t things gotten easier? Why do we feel punished when all we tried to do was build a life together? What decisions brought us here, and how do we live with them? These aren’t just questions—they’re indictments we place on ourselves. A quiet shame that we mask with strength.
We thought having a child would bring hope. A fresh start. But now we fear we were foolish. We’re older. We’re supposed to know better. And yet here we are, stretching ourselves thin to provide for a life we chose in love but now question in fear. That questioning isn’t about her—it’s about us. Our ability. Our worth. Our future. What will we have left to give in 20 years?
Sometimes, I think about returning.
Returning to America after nearly 20 years apart. But what would I return to? I left everything. My car was my home, and I gave it up. My storage unit—my final tether to the past—gone. The journals I wrote, the toys I saved for my children so they wouldn’t feel like strangers in a new land, my mother’s keepsakes, my clothes. Everything. I started from zero then, and returning would mean starting from less than zero now. No car. No place to sleep. No job waiting. No friends offering a couch. No identity to fall back into. Just more pain, more missing, more separation.
Here, at least, I can hold my wife. That embrace—even when it says nothing—says everything. She kissed me goodbye today, standing while I sat, her body leaning into mine, and in that moment, it said, “We are still in this together.” The music in my ears was a cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and it felt too perfect, too cruelly timed.
She had only come home for a moment to cook because her mother’s place—where she stays most of the time to watch over our granddaughter and run our small hole-in-the-wall community tiendita—had run out of gas. She had to leave shortly after. That tiendita barely brings in anything, and the gas is another expense we can’t continue to cover. We know our own home will soon be out of gas too. Before she left, she handed me a baby carrier backpack—something someone was selling secondhand—something she wanted me to see. A gesture of hope in a time of lack. We have so many needs. And so little to meet them.
I’ve considered leaving for Cancun to find work. My son is there, and even he, with youth and more flexibility, is barely surviving on 1,300 pesos a week—about $65. And everything costs more there. Sure, I have English skills. Maybe a resort job. But competition is fierce, and even if I land something, what do I live on in the meantime? And worst of all, I’d be alone. Just like if I left for America again. The outcome would be the same—separation. Absence. Emptiness.
Then there’s the rock and a hard place. Or worse: the bugs that live under the rock.
That’s where I feel we are now. Not just stuck. Not just pinned. But buried. In the dirt, in the silence, surrounded by things no one wants to talk about. Forgotten. Crushed. People talk about rock-bottom, but few describe what it’s like to live under rock-bottom. It’s not just about lack of resources. It’s the loneliness. The way you start to feel inhuman. The way you start to believe that maybe you’re meant to be forgotten. That maybe this is just the way it ends.
But then I look at her.
And somehow, despite everything, we stand. Not because we’re strong on our own—but because we are strong for each other. Even in the pretending. Even in the fire. Even under the rock.
That strength doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like a sentence. But it’s what we have.
There are 90 days left in this window I’ve given myself. Ninety days to go from nothing to everything. And I know how unrealistic that sounds. I’ve said it out loud. I don’t know if anything will come of this podcast appearance. I don’t know if sharing this truth will open any doors. But I have to try. Not for miracles, but for movement. Not for fame, but for forward.
We aren’t alone in this. I know that now. There are others, quietly suffering, who look at their partners and say, “We’re okay,” even when they’re not. There are others standing in fires. Holding hands. Carrying babies and bills and dreams that feel too heavy to bear. If you’re one of them, this blog is for you
And going forward, these entries will start to take shape around the themes that are growing louder in my heart—Genetic Predisposition and Fatherhood.
What makes us who we are? Are we destined to repeat the mistakes of our parents, or can we break the cycle? What kind of father can I be if I never had the chance to truly be one before?
Those questions will shape what’s to come. But for now, this moment—this fire—is where we are. And if you’re here too, just know: you’re not forgotten. We are trying. We are burning. But we are not alone.
Be strong for each other.