An Only Child With Only Their Shadow as a Sibling

Welcome to the mind and heart of an only child! As far as I can remember, I was supposed to have a little sister or a little brother, but my destiny decided otherwise. And as far as I can feel, this turnaround has never bothered me or prevented me from living my life to its fullest. I was about two years old and, honestly, I've always made my family think that I refused to have a brother or sister. Obviously, I didn't want their birth to completely take up my parents' time, attention, efforts, and love. Today, I can't even blame myself since I was just a little girl who found solace in the plethora of advantages her solitary childhood offered her, but little did she know her adolescence wasn't going to be that munificent?

Being an only child is carrying on your back an ocean of stereotypes, and by bringing a shell close to your ear canal, you don't hear the sound of your blood circulation but the voices, echoing one another, of all these people who constantly bring them back to the surface, alongside the foam. Indeed, one of the most common stereotypes about only children is how lucky they are not to have to share anything. Really? As an only child, the song lyrics I relate to the most are, "And I never had someone to call my own, I'm so used to sharing," from "Silence" by Marshmello ft. Khalid. The fact is, have you ever thought about seeing us from the angle that shows that we actually have to share everything? In reality, all our social statuses are subsidiary, and their longevity mainly depends on time's unpredictability. Our generation would have remained an urban legend in our houses if we didn't exist. As teenagers, when our friend is someone else's best friend, and our best friend is someone else's brother or sister, it becomes clear that brotherhood and sisterhood are the only statuses that can't be replaced or shared, and in this case, we must carry the blood of our lineage in our veins alone, so failing will never be an option for us since no one's ever going to take care of our parents the way we would or feel as responsible for them as we do, especially when they get old!

Trust me, never having felt the warmth of a large family is a silent kind of pain, yet so loud inside, just so you know that you're somewhere irreplaceable while we're replaceable anywhere. To fight her cancer, my mother had to undergo an operation that obliged her to spend the night in the hospital. During the day, her room was full of a garden of worried and affectionate souls, but when the moon had replaced the sun and visiting hours were over, that garden had faded, and only the saddest and most worried soul was still blossoming because, on the bed, was lying, in a silent pain only she could hear, the soul that had always watered her until she forgot to water herself. I could have never left my mother alone since I'm her only child, and no one could have ever convinced me to do so and go back to see her the next morning. I wouldn't have slept anyway, so staying with her and taking care of her alone that night was definitely better than worrying about how she was doing in a house that isn't home without her. It was a duty no one would have fulfilled with the same sense of responsibility as I did.

Speaking of which, if there's a scenario that has been living rent-free in my mind for years and still does, it's how I'm supposed to bear my parents' death when they're literally all I'll ever have had, and the only ones who'll have never given up on me for someone else. That day, however far away I pray it remains, no one, absolutely no one, will have a heart and soul as drowned in loneliness as we will. Having always ended up not feeling loved and valued except by my parents, who have always loved me to the moon and back, been here for me through highs and lows, and shown me my real value instead of making me constantly doubt it, impossible isn't enough for me to describe how much I can't deny that losing them feels like losing myself, my identity, and my emotional stability for a period of time that I don't want to have to define.

Also, let's not forget that we, only children, will unfortunately never have the cherished chance of being biological uncles or aunts since we don't have any siblings. Honestly, I've been surrounded by friends who have become aunts from a rather young age for a long time, and I've never cared about this fact until this year. Actually, I think my desire and that slight bitterness of regret increase proportionally with the passage of time, which never fails to carry my age with the wind, leaving me with all those words to tell you about some of the weaknesses that constrain my peaceful only-child life! Take it as an antiphrasis!