I long for a sibling. Always have, always will.
My house is built for two.
Built for two kids running around, playing together, or talking the night away.
My bedroom and another room connect to the bathroom in the middle. I’ve imagined just how many times I would have wandered into the other room at night if it was filled with someone instead of somethings.
I long for a sibling. Someone who is always there.
Yes, I have people I confide in my life, but it’s not the same as having someone with only two sliding doors being the distance between us.
I’ve always wanted to develop a secret language with my sister or brother, but I’m left trying to decode my own. I’ve always wanted to be able to be able to walk into the next room and talk all night, but instead, I lay staring at the ceiling in darkness.
Alone.
I hear stories of all the memories people have with their siblings, and I wish I had one to share. Of all those questions teachers would ask in elementary school about who is the oldest or the youngest, rarely did they ask about the only.
The house gets lonely inside—there are endless opportunities for activities to keep me occupied, but I always seem to be bored. I’m alone with my thoughts every time I’m in this house, just sitting in my bean bag watching a movie I’ve seen all too many times before.
I’ve dreamt about playing board games as a family of four, as many games are intended for, but they’re left to sit in the closet until the rare occasion that someone comes over to play them.
I long for a sibling. Someone who I can always visit.
I want my sister to be my maid of honor, so I can turn my head and see her smiling right there by my side. I want to be an aunt to my brother’s kid who runs up to me with arms outstretched yelling “Aunt Autumn! Aunt Autumn!” I want to go and visit my sister living in New York with her husband and three amazing kids who love Broadway as much as I do.
I know I can still be an aunt, but it’s not the same. I’ve seen the relationship between my mom and my aunt, and I yearn to have that connection with someone. Though I’ve come close, I know I can never find one exactly like that.
I long for a sibling. Someone to be with when no one else is.
When my mom is in her “cave” doing work and Dad is doing who knows what, I’m left upstairs with my lavender-coated walls to keep me company. I love my parents, but some days, I just want another kid.
Someone I had the honor of looking after and giving advice to as he or she went through high school; I could tell them all about what classes to take and everything I knew. They could come to me when they needed help and wanted a hug.
Or, have an older sibling to pass down advice to me, someone who could help me with homework and someone to run to when something was going wrong. Once they had gone off to college, that’s when I would have first felt what it was like to be the only kid in the house, walking around, constantly thinking about them and about the next time they would come home.
Though I have never been a part of a family with more than one kid, I’ve found people who I think of as family. Though she isn’t a sliding door away, she is just across the street, and that’s closer than I ever could have dreamed of.
“You’re on your own, kid / Yeah, you can face this / You’re on your own, kid / You always have been”
-“You’re on Your Own Kid”- Taylor Swift
