The One and Only

I am the only child of my parents. Being “The One and Only” is quite a tough job, sometimes it’s the best thing that can ever happen. When you are the only child, you grab all the attention of your parents. You be the center of their lives, their world revolves around you. You are the one they think of the moment they wake up, till the day ends. They always want the best for you in life, and go out of the way to fulfill your wishes and desires. As long as your demand is reasonable, you’re sure to get it almost every time. You don’t even have to share your things with anyone. Everything you have is only yours, including your parents. No fighting, no tattling, no hassle.

But sometimes, you wish you had a sibling, someone you could talk to in the middle of the night. Someone who would give you a hug when you need it the most. Someone who would watch scary movies with you at midnight, on Friday the 13th. Someone who would know your weaknesses and insecurities, yet never exploit them. Someone you can trust.

Since you aren’t used to sharing your things, and feelings, you often end up becoming an introvert. You face problems when it comes to making friends. To overcome this feeling of loneliness, you start living inside your head. You create a make-believe world, where you have siblings, and a perfect family, and a lot of friends, world where things go your way. And when you are subjected to a reality check time-to-time, you become even more disheartened.

Till the time you’re at home, with your family, it’s still okay. You have people to care for you. But once you move out, and are on your own, you find it difficult to manage alone, because you’ve always been spoon fed by your parents. You take more time than others to learn the ways of the world, after you come out of the over-protective environment you’ve grown up in. When you face the world alone, you realize that you’re not always the center of attention, and that you have to work hard to get noticed. Once you know how this world works, once you get out of that shell of yours, it doesn’t really make a difference. You meet new people, interact with them, and form bonds which are perhaps equally as strong as that of siblings. Well, this is what my experience has been like. Feel free to post your comments.

Thank you for the kind patience and interest, keep visiting this space!

P.S: This post is heavily inspired from an answer I saw in Quora. However, the experience I have had being a single child is quite the same, the way it was depicted there.