Andrea Colleen: The Only Child Of Children

On the midnight of 26th September 1996, Andrea Colleen was born, the first member of the galaxy Adell and Cecille created. All eyes were with her as she has those big, bright eyes and fair complexion, shining brightly throughout the hospital nursery. Being the only child of her parents, they wanted the best of everything for her. Everything that she wanted was given to her, may it be expensive toys or lavish clothes. All of these, of course, were to compensate her parents’ lack of time with her. As a child, she rarely saw her parents because of their busy work schedules. Every day, she would be dropped off at her maternal grandmother’s house in Tondo, Manila before dawn and then would be picked up hours after the sun sets–which in both cases,
At the age of five, she first entered school at Family Partners Child Learning Center. Sometime during the school year, her parents separated for almost a year forcing her to split up her days with both of her parents–weekdays with her mother then weekends with her dad–making things a lot more complicated for. This was a hard time for her for she did not really know why she needed to be in a different house for several days. In summer following her nursery year, her parents got back together and decided to stay under one roof again, this time in Project 6–in one of her paternal grandmother’s apartments. She then transferred to Montessori Child Learning Center (now Maria Montessori School of Quezon City) for her Kindergarten class, which also served as her second home for 12 years. At a young age, she has transferred to several neighborhoods already but she still remained as the jolly, cheerful girl of the
It was only her who had big round eyes, small nose and lips, and fair complexion that is why she was seen as different. From then on the light inside her slowly faded away. She had become less friendly and sociable to her other classmates as well as the other people in their neighborhood. The bullying affected her self-esteem and confidence throughout the years that she became the shy girl who would not talk unless talked to. Even after the bullying had stopped already, she was not able to spark the fire that lights up her personality anymore. It was in freshman year of high school when she embraced her uniqueness and started to use her weaknesses as her strengths. She gained more friends and became more confident about herself. She became popular as well not only for her unique features but also become one of top students of her batch. She showed the people that bullied her before that the things they had said before were the same things why she stood out amongst everybody. Slowly, the outgoing and cheerful Andrea was shining brightly again bringing positive energy to everyone around