The Middle Child

Since this week we have an open topic so to speak, I decided to talk about what it's like being the middle child.

I am the middle of five! Farien and Rosyani are older, then two younger sisters, Soraya and Bel. I guess really, it was three against two. Farien and Rosyani are so much other than the rest of us, that they were always off in their own world, with the three of us sticking together.

Being the middle child in this dynamic is much different than in a typical family, I suppose. Rosyani and Farien were over there, and I was basically the oldest of the younger trio. After our Father died and Farien began helping more with the Kingdom, and Rosyani having her troubles, the distance between us grew.

I tried for a time to keep the peace between the two sides, the way a middle child usually acts. It was too soon though, that I joined the side of my younger sisters. Rosyani drifted further away from us until finally, it was almost like she wasn't part of the family at all. Which was our fault entirely, I don't blame Rosyani at all. But, with the two older siblings gone in a sense, I was the one that had to take up the role of 'big sister'.

I felt an enormous amount of pressure from this new role. Being a teacher, one would think I could handle the pressures of others looking up to me and relying on me. It is a completely different matter when it concerns family opposed to students in a classroom setting. I became a perfectionist. Every thing I did or said had to be exactly right or I felt that I had failed in some way.

Too late I realized how much I needed Rosyani, my big sister. But I had pushed her away. I suddenly felt alone. Between our Mother still painful grieving the death of our father, Rosyani's struggles with no powers, Farien's stress to fill our father's shoes, and my younger sister's apparant lack of compassion for others, I felt our family had fallen apart - and it was my fault. I had failed in someway to hold everyone together. As a middle child, wasn't that my role? To keep the peace and hold everyone together?

It wasn't until recently that I realized no one should bear such a heavy responsibility. I missed out on a lot of things - fun adventures and even trouble - I wanted to do in order to keep at this vain attempt to hold our family together. But, things just became worse the more time that passed. I wonder now if any thing I did ever made a difference at all. Was my sacrifice really worth it?