Last week, I scrolled through my Instagram feed absentmindedly liking pictures of people and their siblings for "National Sibling Day." My followers, however, did not have the pleasure of seeing an Instagram of my beloved siblings and me on their feeds. Instead, I sent what I thought was a humorous SnapChat to some of my friends that read "Happy National Siblings Day to all my siblings. Lol, love you guys." It's humorous because I am an only child.

For the past 20 years of my life, I have spent many lonely afternoons entertaining myself, wishing for a dog to be my companion, suppressing my very mild case of only child syndrome, and begging my overworked parents to play with me on vacations. It hasn't been all bad, though. I wouldn't necessarily recommend being an only child, but I wouldn't not recommend it, either. In fact, I think the best thing that has come out of having no siblings is the relationship that my parents and I have today. We seriously are the three best friends that anyone could have.

You don't need to be an only child to have a close relationship with your parents, obviously. But, for my family, at least, I'm convinced we're as close as we are because it's just the three of us. People often think I am joking when I say, "I like my parents better than 95 percent of people my own age." I'm definitely not. My parents are truly my two favorite people to spend time with. As "uncool" as it may be to admit, I'd take a night out to dinner and a movie on our couch with them over a wild Mod rager any night. They make me laugh. I make them laugh. We have inside jokes that we repeat for weeks straight until they're passed the point of still being funny. If I had to spend my entire life alone with two people 30 years older than I am, I wouldn't want anyone else other than my mom and dad.

Naturally, like any parent-child relationship, we're not constantly amicable. Stuff happens. That being said, I've observed that the older I get, we all begin to understand each other better and have become closer with noticeably less conflict. Kath and Jim are my people and my dormant (or not so dormant) only child syndrome is thrilled I don't have to share them with anyone else.