Siblings

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who treat us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring - quite often the hard way. - Pamela Dugdale


I've already started my third week of lessons at Innova Junior College. Tutorials starts this week, and as my lecturers and tutors have warned us, the homework "tsunami" will be coming soon. No surprise, since we will have to juggle our Project Work, as well as our A-level subjects altogether, which will definitely test our time-management skills, which I lacked. Not to worry, I'm a changed person. I think I should be able to handle it. No longer am I gonna back down and screw everything up this time. I'm gonna take A-Levels down, one step at a time.


Just yesterday, I was strolling at a park under my grandmother's flat, and I happened to see a father playing badminton with his very young son, teaching and guiding him in the process. It reminded me of the days my parents taught me how to play badminton, in which I always lose to my parents at first. Then as I grew, my badminton skills overtook them. Also I saw 4 siblings playing basketball together, with one very young kid who looked like he can be the next Jeremy Lin. They were having so much fun. I was thinking of how it would be like if I had siblings.


Anyways, here's a fact about me - I am the only child of my family. I have neither brothers nor sisters. Well, I'm not the usual kind that whines about not having any siblings at all. Actually I don't mind being the only child. When I look at my friends who have siblings and how they interact with each other, I just wanna laugh. I mean, they often quarrel with their siblings, their brothers and sisters just seemed so annoying to them and stuff. Not that I'm glad that I need not suffer from having an annoying brother/sister who will piss me off, but I find it rather amusing how these siblings can actually live under one roof and quarrel with each other on every single chance they get.


These friends who have such unreasonable siblings will find me lucky coz' I don't have to deal with such people in my life, especially since if I have siblings, I gotta live with them until the day either they or I move out to live on our own. Ya, I really am lucky. I have my room to myself, my computer to myself, my games to myself, my parents' money to myself, my parents' attention to myself, my parents' love to myself and no idiot will come and disturb or irritate me.... and I can go on and on and on... Y'all will think this way. What's so bad about being the only child?


Of course, there's nothing wrong being the only child. And of course I must say that you really are unlucky to have such annoying sibling(s) born in the same family. But have you ever wondered how much can your siblings impact you? People change because of their siblings, for better or for worse. They could have such great impact on you. Someday you'll look back and ask yourself, will you be the way you are now if your sibling(s) didn't exist? Someday, you might be grateful that your siblings are by your side instead of anywhere else.


There're "good" siblings out there too. Brothers and sisters alike. They can be elder siblings or younger siblings, it doesn't matter. They are like a gift from heaven. But you can't expect every single person to be a good brother/sister. 


Throughout my life, I've only met two other people with the exact same birthday as me, though we are not born in the same year. These two people are my god-sisters. I met Sharon when she's just a baby. If I remembered correctly, I met her in Primary 4. My mother was babysitting her, so she's around my house from early morning all the way until the evening. I saw her grow, when she's just only able to cry and giggle, all the way till she is able to crawl and finally walk. Sometimes when I gotta wake up early for school, she enters my room on the "baby-walker" which has loud sounds inputed in it's buttons, and she will personally wake me up with all the noise she can make by spamming all the buttons. She will make that cute laugh when I have to wake up unwillingly. It is still so vivid in my mind. I felt so proud when she finally called me "brother" in Chinese. It's so long ago, she should probably be a primary 3 kid now.


The other person is my "jie", whom I already wrote about a long time ago somewhere in this blog. These two people are the sisters I never had. Actually, I was supposed to have a younger sister. But she didn't make it. I keep wondering how she'll look like, how different my life would have been if she came into this world. It's not that I feel lonely because I'm the only child. It's just that I find it a pity, that I didn't know what could've been. She might be another devilish sister who might haunt me and irritate me till I'm scared of her. Or she might be a really understanding and mature sister? Who knows...


Treasure the people around you, especially those who might seem insignificant. Because when they are around, you may find their presence unpleasant, but when they leave, you will miss them.