The Aunt Who Rang To Ask For Money

For as long as I can remember, money has been an issue in my family.

Acknowledgement: it is a fact that money is an issue with most families.

In my family, money is an ISSUE.

I grew up very mindful of the various heartaches that lack of money wreaks on people's lives. I was surrounded by vastly unhappy adults, mothers/fathers/uncles/aunts/cousins, who chose to let their lack diminish their reception of the great possibilities for creating happiness. I coveted the good fortunes of better-off friends, their fancy schools, exotic holidays and lovely glossy clothes.

Most of all, I grew up wanting to ESCAPE the unhappy coven of my money-starved, and by consequence, money-obssessed blood relations. I grew up resenting them for continuously choosing to mire their perceptions and judgements in murky negatives, of basing their reception of experiences on lack instead of opportunity.

In short, I grew up wanting out of my family.

Happily, (and entirely by design of course!), I've managed to keep at the safest possible distance from these unhappy souls, some of whom continue to choose to be unhappy. And in case you're wondering, NO, they're not hobos or hillbillies (don't you just love these words?) who live on rations or government support or ghettoes. They're an educated, middle-class bunch who've taken issue with the fact that the weren't born to money (like the rest of the world!) and that, at certain periods, they've had to work themselves to the bones to survive in this dog eat dog economy.

And so...

I was a little taken aback when just a few weeks after the wedding, I received a phone call from another of my aunts. She said that she was, as usual, short on dosh, and would I give her some so that she could throw her daughter a graduation bash at their favourite restaurant? She said it would be such a terrible pity if she couldn't do that for her one and only child.

"Excuse me?!!"

My partner and I received neither phone call nor letter from her to congratulate us on our wedding or to at least wish us luck (and don't we all need it?!). We didn't particularly mind as she is fairly self-absorbed and tend not to be very mindful of what's goes on around her in general. We didn't mind...

BUT...

When I got the phone call asking me for money, without so much as an enquiry into how the wedding fared (maybe something like, "did everything go well?"), I sort of began to mind. My partner minded very much. Then I really started to mind.

Then I got very upset.

This is how it's been on that side of my family for as long as I can remember. They're a little bit autistic. A reasonable reasoned individual might say to him or herself: "um, it's probably not very appropriate for me to ask these guys for money because they've just hosted a wedding, and also because they might be a little ticked that I didn't even bother to send them a card".

One would think, huh?

I haven't spoken to that aunt since, and I'm not exactly sure I want to anytime soon.