Siblings are peculiar, each bringing out a different side of you. You could get along perfectly well with one of them and somehow feel nothing but bitterness towards the other. The state of sibling relationships somehow never stays the same for long either. One moment, you’re at each other’s throats and the next you’re comforting them, causing internal emotional conflict. These make sibling relationships seem more complex than they really are.
Someone who is an only child may seem to want siblings more than people who actually have them, hence the amount of times I’ve imagined being an only child so that I could have my own room, be at peace for once and have new things all to myself without having to think of people to share it with. Yet, growing up, all the memories that are the most fun involve them. They’re the only people who will ever know your most embarrassing moments in life, the only ones who will see the stages of life you’ll go through, and the only ones who can bring both the best as well as worst out of you out in the most unnecessary situations. You could be in trouble with your sibling next to you and just one look from one another could cause a laughing fit bubbling out of your mouth, making it worse as you suppress it as much as you can. Perhaps you could be at a graduation ceremony and overhear someone speak ill of your sibling and suddenly, you’re spitting insults into the face of a stranger who you’ve mentally deemed as a prick. Sadly, despite having numerous fond memories, it also comes hand in hand with bitter ones.
It’s undeniable that there is sibling rivalry due to being compared to one another and not wanting to feel like a failure. The want to be recognised as your own person despite having siblings is a challenge as everything you do and say could easily cause other people to compare. Being protective of one another is natural, but it easily hinders a lot of opportunities as people could easily perceive you as unapproachable, snobbish, or intimidating. Moments like these may not directly involve them, but it’s hard to feel anything negative towards them as you were raised to think of them as your closest ally, seemingly causing you to feel guilt that could grow into resentment as time goes by. At times, they feel like a burden as responsibilities are put on your shoulders, opportunities pass you by as you look after the younger ones and make sure they don’t get themselves into trouble. Worst of all, the people they choose to surround themselves with can easily change the way you perceive them. You’d think you know them, yet somehow a single person can make them seem like a completely different person.
At the end of the day, no matter how much your sibling puts you through, it is undeniably exhausting to subject them to animosity. Having siblings in your life presents unorthodox opportunities which in turn provides a skill set which didn’t seem practical at the time, and yet as time goes by, these skill sets seem to prove themselves to be much more useful than we’d realise. As much as we see them as a nuisance, growing up we learn to appreciate them in our own ways.
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