What it Means to be a Twin

     It came to my attention recently that I have never tried to describe to someone what it is like to be a twin. I was complaining that sometimes love interests or friends don't understand what it is like to be a twin and a unit. She followed by asking me if I had ever tried to explain it someone. I couldn't believe that I hadn't and was then at a loss for what to say and where to start. The person I was talking to told me to try and describe it to her. After I was done bumbling through my answer she said she understood what I was saying, but I'm not sure how articulate I actually was. So I'm going to try and do it here. As that was my original reason for starting this blog!
     I'm just going to jump in - being a twin for me is being half of a unit. It is not being able to survive if the other person isn't alive. It is wanting to run home and share everything, even the little insignificant things, with my sister. It is sitting outside a classroom for 45 minutes because I haven't seen her all day and I want to talk to her the moment she gets out of class. Its being on the same wavelength, dressing alike accidentally. Having someone understand where I have been, where I am now, and where I'm going. It is loving someone and depending on them in a way that almost isn't healthy. Being a twin for me is having someone who is always there to talk, to listen, to go on adventures with.
     There is also a more negative side to twinship. It's being willing to sacrifice my own happiness for my sisters. It's willing to be held back or inconvenienced. It's dragging someone somewhere they don't want to go but essentially making them go anyway.
   To me, these inconveniences or negative aspects are far outweighed by the good. One of my favorite quotes about twins is "the love is so intense, but so is the hate". Not that I hate my sister, but there are moments when I want to strangle her. I like this quote because I feel like it sums up the intensity of being a twin and the feelings that can go along with it. This is what being a twin is like in my eyes. I'm not sure if this is any more articulate or if it leaves more questions. In any case, this is my attempt to explain what being a twin is like.


As Abigail Pogrebin said in her book "One in the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I've learned about Everyone's Struggle to be Singular" -

"Being an identical twin - I can't speak for fraternals - is intense. It's all the cliches: feeling like you have an unwavering partner in life, knowing exactly what another person feels, wanting to tell her a story before anyone else, confiding with unrestrained - sometimes shocking - candor, valuing her opinion above anyone else's, taking on someone else's pain to the point of vicarious depression, being incapacitated by a minor dispute." - Abigail Pogrebin, One and The Same

     This quote eloquently sums up my feelings about being a twin and what that means for me in my life.