let lemons be angry

The most common question I got as a child (and sometimes now) was "No siblings? Aren't you lonely?" To which I have developed an ever-ready rehearsed set of answers: a poignant sigh, a thought, a "well," a "sometimes, but I don't know what having a sibling is like so I can't say." So politically-correct, how I hate my cautious personality type sometimes.

Here are some questions answered and myths proven true:

Yes, I get my own room and I love it. Yes, I wish I had a sibling to stick to when I'm at awkward family/church functions and both parents are milling around. Yes, I wish I had a sibling to fight with, to protect me, or to protect. I wonder what he would be called. Justin or Jordan, my mum used to say. I vote for Jordan. Yes, my parents did try for other children. Yes, I did ask them to try for other children. I even hounded them about adoption and would fantasize about a baby being left at our doorstep.

My mum likes to recount the time she was pregnant and told me I'll have to share my room when the baby was born. I said seriously, but without malice, "It can sleep in the balcony." In my defense, the balcony was my favourite place! My bird, Happy, was there, my inflatable wade pool was there, and I spent every afternoon sweeping the balcony pretending to be Cinderella, and gathering dust like people while singing, "Come one, come all," (from the Hunchback of Notre Dame). Not knowing the extent of my regard for the balcony, my mum has cheerfully added it to the world's list of cliches about only child-ren not being very willing to share.

Last myth proven true: Yes, I have my parents all to myself and we are close. My dad was my only playmate, and my mother was the one who cuddled. There came the awkward teenage years when I was perpetually sulky about my unfound identity and the many injustices of being trapped in my most depressing family, and I am profoundly sorry to my parents for the many silent car-rides and meals. But the phase passed, and I am back to not being able to keep quiet about my day. Sometimes I sit on the side of my mother's bed and ramble on about demanding human beings, while my father snores beside us but secretly listens. I sms her breaking news about scandals, she sms-es me cryptic replies and strange things my father does. I tell my father, "Let's cycle today," and it has to be done because I said it and I'm always his little girl.

I had to say all this because (sigh) (thought) ("well..") my parents are away and so, siblingless and no longer with urges to race about the night city, I wonder how I will spend the rest of the night without anybody at home to ramble to about my unimportant happenings. Also, I've come to realize how spoilt I have been, to have had good parents and not appreciate it as much as I should have.