I’m second best in a house that has only one child

 

Validation is a high you cannot beat. Take it from me.

To be seen for what you are and even liked for it. To be wanted for it. Gods.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how euphoric that feels. The high of belonging somewhere without having to ask. To be fucking enough to be good.

But before we get to the reward, let’s start at the beginning.

 

When you grow up in a house that has only one child you learn to do it all. Making room. Making space. It all becomes instinct after a while. Cutting corners and cutting off more of yourself to squeeze into places that you don’t belong to. Pacifying, perfecting and playing the part to keep the peace. No ripples, no rocking, nothing to shake the flimsy sense of self-worth that comes with,
“Could be better, Can be more.”
An almost. A could have been.
One that falls short of just enough to never be enough.

 

So it becomes a performance. An act, if you will. To take on these expectations, to shoulder this responsibility and make a production of it. To show that you can take it. Whatever it is. Bend, bruise, but never break. To craft the perfect narrative of being just good enough. Of taking in the disappointment of never being enough and wielding it as a weapon of self-destruction. To battle your own disappointment every day, every step of the way, right down to your heart. The very one you guard like a caged beast ravenous for affection. This elephant in the room never leaves and leaves no room to breathe. To be.

 

No one asks you if you want to do it. They just assume you like colouring inside the lines and never stepping out of them. Or maybe they don’t care. But you see, sentences are made powerful by the spaces between the words. It’s these silences that say more than the words do. When nothing is said, so much is too. It takes a very good reader to know it. I would know. When you grow up never hearing, “Good job! I’m proud of you!” you make it your job to be good. To be perfect. To bring everything you have and more to the show and tell. You hold up each skill, each quality, every art you know of, one by one and see which sparks praise. But what you really want is for someone to push everything off the table and be glad that you only brought yourself. It creates this need to be seen, to be valued, to be cherished, because when all that you are is never the perfect amount of enough, you settle for being useful.

 

So you jump up, at every occasion, in any given situation. You’re the problem solver. The planner. The neurotic one with checklists and plan Bs. The one who laughs it off even if it did take you all night to put it all together. The one who always has it together, because what is the other option? To trust someone else to have it together for you? Gods no. The golden rule is to always give. To keep pouring. To keep adding more and more and more and more. Even if the cup goes empty because the alternative is asking. And when you’re the one who everyone counts on, who else is there to ask?

 

It’s not perfect, this explanation. It’s not an answer. Like me, it’s good, but not good enough, I guess. But fitting, because after all, I’m second best in a house that has only one child.