The only child..and the pain it is bringing now. posted 2/7/2008 11:32:19 AM | 2 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: heartbreak, parents

CHARLIgurl1

I am the only child of an only child.

Makes the family pretty small on my mother's side. My Dad's family are scattered everywhere, there's so many of them, many I have never met.

Being an only child was great as a kid when it came to presents!.. no-one else to share the Christmas goodies with!..
Birthdays too, lots of what I had hoped for, big parties and that pretty expensive party dress that I had admired in the shop window.

Rainy days could be boring tho, my play room packed with toys and no-one to play with them with. Sometimes I would have loved a sister or a brother even just to have that typical sibling fight!.. anything would have been better than feeling lonely and bored.

Now I am an adult, being the only child, has brought more pressures that I ever thought it would.

When I left the UK last Monday to return to Portugal, my Mother stood in tears in the airport. I hugged her and told her I'd be back soon, but I know how hard it was for her.
My mother's decision to only have one child, has never been explained, but it means now, that I am all she has, no other children, no other Grandchildren, no nephews or neices. She has a heart condition and a lung problem which inhibits her movements, so travelling to me is more or less impossible.
I know that she is already looking forward to me retuning to the Uk, she's missing me so much already.

When I finally arrived home in Portugal, where I share a home with my father, the house was a terrible mess. He just doesn't seem to be able to cope on his own.
My dog Charliegirl was desperate for a brush, as too was lil Charlie the terrier, the birds cage was screaming to be cleaned, and there was just what I call 'muddles' everywhere.
The fridge was bare, as were the cupboards, and I wondered what on earth he'd been living on. He also looked thin.
After the initial day of unpacking and resting, I got to work, and now everything seems pretty much back to the land of organisation.

But all this leaves me so worried.

To those of you who know that my ultimate goal is to be with the man I love in America, the visions of what happens to my parents after that are terrible!

I wont be able to get on a plane and visit my mother as often as I have been doing, flights from Portugal to England are only just over 2 hours, and are quite cheap compared to the 11 hours and very expensive flights to and from America.

My father will be left to fend for himself, Charliegirl, as it pains me to say, probably wont be around when I leave, but lil Charlie will, and so will the birds.
And I think, if the place was in such a mess after 7 weeks, I dread to think what the place would look like say after 7 months!!

If only my mother hadn't made the decision to only have one child, things would be easier, brothers and sisters to help with my ageing parents.

My head says that I can't live my life for my parents, after all.. it was thier decision to only have me. And then my heart says.. OMG what will happen to them?.. Its a predicament that I wouldnt wish on anyone right now.

Even if I'd fallen for a guy in England.. that leaves my father in Portugal.. If I'd started a relationship with someone in Portugal, that leaves my mother in England.

Whatever I do theres going to be heartbreak, and most likely mine

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