The morning after her little solo birthday celebration, she woke up later than usual.
For a few seconds, she stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling while the sounds of the house slowly reached her. Someone was moving around in the kitchen. The television was already on in the living room.
Then she remembered the flowers.
She sat up and looked toward the small table beside her window.
There they were, slightly crowded inside an old glass jar she had found in the kitchen last night. It wasn't exactly a vase, but it worked.
She smiled.
For once, there was something pretty in her room that served no purpose other than making her happy.
Her phone showed several notifications, most of them late birthday greetings she hadn't replied to yet.
She wasn't used to seeing them.
For years, she had kept her birthday hidden on Facebook, visible only to herself. This year, for reasons she couldn't fully explain, she changed it so her friends could see. Maybe it's her first bucket list in mind. Maybe she just wanted to know what it felt like to be remembered.
Now that people were actually greeting her, she didn't know how to feel about it.
She ignored the notifications for now and got out of bed.
"Ate?"
She turned.
Her younger sibling stood a few steps away, looking hesitant.
"What?"
"I need to get my requirements for work."
She waited.
"I still need money for the medical, some documents, and pamasahe."
Before she could answer, their mother spoke from the kitchen.
"Hingi ka muna kay Ate."
She didn't even sound demanding.
She said it as if it were the most obvious solution.
"How much?" she asked.
"Maybe three thousand pesos."
She reached for her phone and opened her banking app.
Her eyes stayed on the balance for a moment.
She had a credit card payment coming soon. Payday was still a few days away. There were other expenses she hadn't paid yet.
She could say no.
Instead, she closed the app.
"Sige."
Her sibling's face relaxed.
"I'll pay you back when I get my first salary."
"It's okay."
The answer came out automatically.
A few seconds later, she wondered why she had said that.
It wasn't okay.
She needed the money too.
Still, she sent it.
---
At work, she knew how to leave certain parts of herself at the door.
She greeted people, joined meetings, finished what needed to be finished, and laughed when someone made a joke.
No one needed to know that she had spent breakfast calculating how much money she had left until payday.
The office itself sometimes felt like another world.
It was the kind of company people were proud to put on their résumés. The building was beautiful, the salary was good, and many of the people around her seemed to come from lives very different from hers.
She noticed it in small things.
The coffee on their desks every morning. The restaurants they suggested without checking the prices first. The weekend trips planned as casually as dinner. The cars waiting for some of them downstairs.
Once, she had heard a coworker complain that her parents wouldn't let her buy another car because she already had one.
She remembered thinking about it for the rest of the day.
Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to earn money that belonged only to her.
Her salary looked good on paper.
But by the time everyone had their share of it, she rarely felt like someone with a good salary.
"Belated happy birthday!"
She looked up from her computer.
A coworker she occasionally spoke to smiled as she passed her desk.
"Oh. Thank you."
A few minutes later, someone else greeted her.
Then another.
Each time, she smiled and thanked them, although she never knew what she was supposed to say after that.
It felt strange having people at work know it was her birthday at all.
Most days, she barely existed outside whatever needed to be done.
She came in. She worked. She answered when spoken to. She laughed when something was funny. Then she went home.
She knew things about her coworkers simply from listening to them talk.
Who was dating whom.
Who was traveling next month.
Whose parents owned a business.
Who was planning to move into a new condo.
She wondered how much they knew about her.
Probably very little.
"Belated happy birthday."
She looked up again.
This time, it was the coworker she talked to more often than the others. There was something different about her—warmer, more expressive than most people around the office.
"Hehehe thank you"
Her coworker grinned . "Facebook exposed you."
She smiled awkwardly. "Hahaha"
They weren't exactly friends.
They talked at work. Sometimes they ate lunch together when their schedules matched. They sent each other funny videos sometimes, usually about work. Half of their conversations were just GIFs and reactions.
She liked her.
But if someone asked whether they were close, she wouldn't know what to say.
At lunch, they ended up sitting together.
"So," her coworker said, opening her food. "What did you do for your birthday?"
"Nothing much."
"Nothing?"
"I walked around."
Her coworker gave her a look.
"I saw flowers on your story."
"Oh. Those."
"Who gave them to you?"
"I bought them."
"For yourself?"
She nodded. "Yeah. From me to me"
Her coworker smiled. "That's actually cute."
She wasn't sure why, but the comment made her smile too.
She continued eating.
She didn't mention the cake.
She didn't mention sitting alone in a parking lot.
She didn't mention looking at the sky and thanking God and the universe for a birthday that nobody else had really celebrated.
It wasn't a secret.
She just didn't know how to explain why it had mattered so much.
Around them, their coworkers were deciding where to go that weekend.
Someone suggested a restaurant she had heard of but never tried.
"It's not that expensive," one of them said.
She looked it up under the table.
It was expensive.
At least to her.
She closed the page before anyone noticed.
Near the end of the workday, she began packing her things.
She had been thinking about stopping somewhere before going home.
Maybe a bookstore.
She didn't need anything. She just wanted to look around for a while.
But when work finally ended, she was too tired and decided to go straight home.
On the way home, she opened social media.
An old classmate was engaged.
She tapped the heart.
Another had posted photos and reels from a trip abroad.
Scroll.
Someone from college had bought a condo.
Scroll.
A former classmate was holding a baby beside her husband.
Scroll.
Promotion.
Wedding.
Another trip.
Another achievement.
She closed the app.
She wasn't angry at them.
If anything, she was happy for them.
She just couldn't understand how everyone seemed to be moving forward while she still felt like she was waiting for her own life to begin.
Her phone vibrated.
Ma: Pauwi ka na?
She replied.
Her: Opo.
Another message appeared.
Ma: Bilhan mo ng gamot si Papa. Wala na rin tayong bigas.
She stared at the screen.
She had been thinking about buying something for herself on the way home.
Nothing important.
She couldn't even remember what it was anymore.
She typed:
Her: Sige.
When she arrived home, she placed the rice and medicine on the kitchen counter.
Her mother and younger sibling were talking at the table.
"I'm nervous," her sibling admitted. "What if I mess up on my first day?"
Her mother smiled.
"That's normal. First job mo naman. Masasanay ka rin."
She stopped.
For some reason, those words brought back a memory she hadn't thought about in a long time.
Her own first job.
She remembered being nervous too.
She remembered coming home and telling her mother that she had finally been hired.
And she remembered what her mother had said.
May trabaho ka na. Tulungan mo na kami sa mga kapatid mo, ha? Para makapagtapos din sila.
Now that you have a job, help us with your siblings, okay? So they can finish school too.
At the time, she hadn't questioned it.
She had simply nodded.
She was the eldest.
Of course she would help.
Years later, two of those siblings had already finished college and had jobs of their own. Another had just graduated and was preparing to start working.
She should have felt relieved.
In some ways, she did.
But somehow, the responsibility had never really left her.
"Ate?"
She looked up.
"What?"
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
She smiled.
"Just tired."
That night, she sat on her bed with her phone in one hand and a notebook beside her.
She checked her bank account again.
Then her credit card.
Then the bills she still needed to pay.
She started calculating.
Salary.
Bills.
Debt.
House expenses.
The money she had given that morning.
She stared at the remaining amount.
She sighed and put her phone down.
Across the room, the flowers from last night caught her attention.
They looked almost out of place in her room.
Beautiful, but completely unnecessary.
They couldn't pay a bill.
They couldn't feed anyone.
They couldn't solve a problem.
She had spent money on something that would eventually die.
A few months ago, she probably would have regretted it.
But looking at them now, she didn't.
She reached for her phone again and opened her Notes app.
Bucket List
The page was almost empty.
She stared at it for a while before typing.
Travel somewhere I've never been.
She added another.
Watch the sunrise by the ocean.
Then:
Eat somewhere nice by myself.
She paused.
There was one more thing she wanted to write.
Make a real friend.
She stared at the words.
After a moment, she locked her phone and placed it beside her.
Her eyes returned to the flowers.
For once, something in her life existed simply because she wanted it.
Maybe that was enough for now.