Freakshow Coming Through

     My recent move to Brooklyn has meant more subway rides and therefore an increase in stares from fellow commuters. I am a walking freakshow. Why? One might ask. The reason is that I am a twin. We live together, go to school together, and sometimes work together. So we are together a lot. And this means that people are going to look at us and comment on our looks. We've gotten every reaction from excited to horrified (which I don't understand). It always confuses me when people look scared when they see us. Usually people say "That's so cute!" even though we're 21 and perhaps past the "cute" stage. In any case, some people just look wildly amused and don't say anything. Other people look terrified.
     It is interesting to have people recognize me. I was very used to it in my hometown. I grew up there, my parents are from there, my extended family lives there. Everyone knows everyone. Anyway, after 3 years of kicking around college it seems I'm also known for being a twin here, in this big old city. This is an example from home, but we had just turned 21 and couldn't go to the pediatrician anymore. So we're going to our new doctors office and when we get there the receptionist had "heard twins were coming." At a doctors office? Twins are this exciting? Is it because we're adult twins? I suspect this might be it. We've been on the street and a woman pointed us out to her probably 8 year old daughter. We're a freakshow because we walk around together I guess way past when people expect to see twins wandering around together. It doesn't help that we dress pretty similarly.
     Part of me loves this attention. It's nice to be noticed. But it's also a little strange and sometimes I don't want to be a walking form of entertainment. Now, I get excited when I see multiples. I think it's amazing. I love when I see other twins. But I also feel this sense of being a freakshow. Why is it so strange to see two people who look alike together? Along this branch, I feel like I rarely see adult twins together, but when I do I get even more excited. I feel that maybe they can relate to me on a "twin level."
     For example, Tegan and Sara Quin. They are twins who make up the band Tegan and Sara. I love their music but I also love their relationship. I do not know them personally (I wish) but the way they talk about each other and their twinship in interviews resonates with me so much. I think on a celebrity level (and maybe a twin level) they can relate to being gawked at. Anyway, their relationship also speaks to me as a twin. It makes me feel less strange and alone for so many reasons. Their music is amazing and speaks to me on other levels too.
     I have many conflicting feelings about being a walking, talking freakshow. Part of me loves it and part of me wants to be left alone. I just want to blend in. I am so indecisive that I will continue to field interesting stares and glances and out right comments. Perhaps this has to do with not feeling special when I am just me. Because I am special when I am with my sister and people let me know.

Here's to many more awkward stares and fun questions and interesting conversations!

   

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since you died. Everything is a blur since coming to college. But that is not the case for you because you’re not here anymore. You're not here and it makes no sense. Reading your sisters Facebook status, talking about you and the day they found out. I have my own memories from that day. But to hear what happened. The uncertainty and hoping for the best but expecting the worst. And then it was the worst the came true.

 I remember going to your house with my mother – we were childhood best friends, always hanging out and together, and I went to your house with my mother after we found out you had died. It was so hard not to be upset and so hard not to cry – but why was I crying? I hadn't talked to you in a while. Maybe it was being in that kitchen that I remember so much from growing up. And seeing your mom – she looked so tired and frail and she told us you looked like you just had a bad wisdom teeth surgery. That you were in tact. That your face was just a little bruised and swollen. I was falling apart yet she was able to hold it together. I always wonder what she thinks of when she sees me and my sister – does she think about what you could have been? Does she think about the past? She always talks about you when I see her. It’s gotten easier but I still like to avoid her. I never know what to do or say. It makes me uncomfortable. 

And then there was Coach Fish the first day of your wake. She's also the one that got a bunch of us together to talk about you. So that we could try and deal with such a tragedy. But the first day of your wake she made us all go over to your house to help get things together. It was so sad for me to be there looking through your stuff, looking through who you were – your track pins and letter, culinary uniforms and achievements, old pictures – I don’t know how to deal with this. I can’t figure out why this is hitting me so hard this year, after all, it is the second one. Maybe this is the reality of it. Although I wouldn't have even remembered if it hadn't been for your sisters Facebook status. And now I’m seeing more status updates about you, today may be harder than I anticipated. In fact I wasn't anticipating anything about today. Both now and when I found out. I couldn't possibly believe it was you who had been in that house.

I wonder if your death reminds me of not only losing you but also of all the other people I've lost. I wonder if I think about not losing you to death but before that, to life. We kind of lost track of each other in high school, grew apart. Only saw each other every now and then after graduation. Our lives were in different places, we wanted different things I guess. Maybe this is just what I tell myself to make me feel okay about us not being friends in the end. To be fair, we weren't not friends, but we weren't close. I didn't know what was going on with you and you didn't know what was going on with me. I wanted to hang out with different people. I’m bad at managing my time I guess, and I didn't make time for you. And then it was too late to make time for you. 

I don’t usually feel guilty when people die. I don’t feel guilty about my grandmother and how much time I spent with her, my mother always feels guilty. I wonder if she feels guilty about you? Maybe I feel more guilty about you than I thought. I also wonder how she dealt with all of it. Did she imagine her child being the one that was gone? I cried so much for you when it first happened, and then my life went back to normal. 

I think about you more than I thought I did – a lot of things remind me of you. I guess I just don’t think of you being dead. But you are in fact dead, you are gone, lost to another place. A place I cannot imagine and a place that I think I am afraid of. But the point is you aren't here with us,  with your family more importantly. I don’t know where any of this is going. I guess I’m just spewing out what came to my mind after seeing your sisters Facebook status. I have so many great memories with you and of who you were, maybe that’s what I’m thinking about. Maybe it’s that I just can’t stand the thought of a person being here one minute and gone the next, especially a person that I knew and cared about.