The first memories that I have of my first decade of life, I have never been alone. I’ve always had my Sister, since the first moment I was born, four minutes after Her. She’s said to me before that those four minutes were the best, and the worst, minutes of Her life so far. That sets the tone for our relationship quite succinctly in a somewhat profound manner, yet it might just be that she was aiming to provoke my ‘delicate sensibilities’ once again.
All of the memories I have from childhood feature Her in some way; if She isn’t next to me in them, She’s not far behind. All this to say that I already have a life partner. Though I had friends through school I never longed for a close connection, someone who understood me. I already had that. I already had Her.
The concept of a possible ‘twinstinct’, though the repeated questions about it irritate me, intrigues me. We’ve never been able to read each other’s minds, but then again I’ve never felt the need to. We communicate well without it. About 40% of twins make up their own language, apparently, but it dissolves as they grow older and learn more words. I was quite disappointed to find out that She and I never managed to formulate an entire language of our own, but thankfully we never seemed to need that. Even now, after months apart, we can look at each other and have an idea of feelings, or emotions. The knowledge just clicks back in, like a puzzle piece of a roaring fireplace, comforting and warming. There have been instances when one of us has stepped in to divert a conversation that would soon have gone awry or explained the other twin’s feelings when she can’t articulate them. Sometimes She expresses my own feelings better than I could have. This isn’t to say that siblings in general can’t do this, if you’re reading and feel put out about your own sibling relationship, but I can’t help but feel special when it happens. I only know one other set of twins, and they have a similar, if not stronger, connection; they see each other at least once a week. When I’m with them, they look at each other mid-conversation and smile and start laughing, a random word translating into a whole conversation for them. Sometimes I feel as though I’m missing out, now that She’s so far away. We could have had more time together. I wonder if this is what our friends or family feel, looking at us, and I feel guilty for our near-constant repetition of ‘You wouldn’t get it’. But the simple fact is, to me, they just wouldn’t. When asked about our differences, my Dad said that when we were younger, She was ‘more vocal’. Even now, my parents have joked that they hear more now from me than they ever did, because with Her gone I finally have the chance to speak! It’s unnerving, to have so much to say and not have someone who immediately understands. Or to speak a half-formed thought and not have it finished for me.
She, however, is the reason I’m slightly claustrophobic. At the age of eight, or maybe nine, we were playing Hide and Seek at my Nan’s house. I remember this part clearly, more clearly than I remember most things. I hid inside the suitcase, curling up and slotting perfectly into the compartment. I’m content to leave it there, thinking nobody would lift up the lid, when She turns to me. ‘I’ll close it up. It’s more realistic.’ I don’t know if I protested this or not, or whether it would have made a difference, but the next ten to fifteen minutes (or six hours, if you were me at the age of eight or nine) were spent in the dark. She maintains to this day that She left enough of a gap for me to breathe, but part of me thinks She had a brief psychotic thought. I got Her back though, playfighting in our room when I swung my Sister round and Her mouth collided with the wooden bedpost. She still has a mark on Her lip, and my slight claustrophobia can’t be seen on the outside, so I think I win.
At the mature age of twelve (I always feel more mature than I actually am, and look back on my own actions with my expression cringing), we adamantly decided we were old enough now to not share a space. The only problem was that the other room was a box room, and one of us would have to leave the bigger room for what used to be our nursery. Aside from the great move of 2015, we shared everything. Wardrobes (I was recently forced to give back a gorgeous brown top I’d acquired from her months ago), friends, hobbies, and a room for twelve years. This might be the reason I enjoy my own personal space, a little quiet bubble of my own where only I exist. It’s nice to be by myself, inside my own mind, but sometimes it makes me miss my other half even more. Even after moving into the box room (I gave in ridiculously, embarrassingly easily), I’d go into Her room at night to sit on Her bed whilst we did our own separate tasks; we were so used to being so close and available that it still takes me a while to adjust when She leaves. I wander into the old box room (thankfully I now have her old room, which is bigger with a window twice the size of my old one) thinking Her suitcase will be open, clothes and books sprawled across the floor that used to hold my personal effects; but the floor is clear, the bed has been stripped, and the records I’ve given her lay tucked into a dresser drawer until She returns.
Nearly every hobby I’ve indulged in has been accompanied by my sister. The first I can remember was dance, which we took part in from the ages of four to eight. The strongest memory I have from dance class at the church rec room down the road is always the swing-rock dances. She was always my partner by default, not that I would have ever wanted it differently, and She always danced in the role of the man; I was shorter by about an inch (I still am. It’s a slight against my ego every time she brings it up), so it made sense for her to take charge. She always has taken charge, and I always (eventually) give in. I don’t mind though, because I usually realise She’s right at some point, or perhaps I’ve just grown used to it. We eventually gave it up for a term of Photography Club, which is one of our biggest pre-adolescent regrets. I would have spent another decade in dance class if it meant She was my partner, swinging me around the dance floor as we giggled together.
Cadets is a slightly different story. Instead of being partnered together we were, in a way, pitted against each other. The pair of twins I know, I met through cadets, and it was them who told me. For some reason, this battle of the minds passed over my head for years. They wanted to compare us, to see which one of us would advance through the ranks first, who the toughest and best leader was. We were fourteen. At first, we were promoted together, at the same time our twin friends were. The next promotion was given to Her, which I received three months later. I applauded with everyone else, louder than everyone else, with disappointment creeping up my throat, clawing at the back of my eyes. For that quarter of a year, Autumn 2019, She gave me orders. I did resent Her for it, occasionally. Only because I felt mocked, embarrassed that I couldn’t catch up with Her, and that everyone else could see it plain as day by the number of stripes on our shoulders. The next promotion we received together was months before my Sister left for University. I thought I would feel lost without her there, but I slipped into my own style of leadership quite quickly. In March of the next year, I was promoted for the final time, to the highest rank you could be as a cadet. This was my proudest moment because this separated everything else that we had done together. Not that I disliked the years we were there together, but because I had a thing. My own thing. When people congratulated me or asked me to do something, they didn’t say ‘Which one are you?’ anymore, despite us not looking like carbon copies of each other for years. I wasn’t known by our last name followed by my initial, I was just known.
In Vogue’s piece ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, Emily Farra writes ‘As a little girl, and even as a 26-year-old now, I can say that having your face and body scrutinized and compared to someone else’s every day breeds a near-obsessive concern with your appearance’, and even now I don’t realise how much it affects me. When we were younger we looked more alike, two ginger peas in a pod. My aunt, who passed away when we were twelve, could never tell us apart. We used to get compared constantly; your face is wider, but Hers is longer, you have a bigger forehead, Her ears don’t stick out like yours do. Now, I don’t hear the physical comparisons as much. I’m glad for it, because it became very old very fast, even as a seven-year-old. Now, the comparisons made are more personality-based, achievement-based. Growing up as an overachiever who doesn’t currently have a job and still lives in her parent’s home, I drew the short end of the stick almost every time. One of the questions I asked my parents was if they thought I’d changed. My Mom said that She’s grown differently, She’s more independent, She’s grown up a lot more. My Mom is right, but I don’t like to admit it, because then I’m back applauding Her, disappointment at my own diminutive achievements filling my lungs. She’s dyed her hair now, so now we’re not ginger or very identical twins any more. We don’t match. Below is my Dad’s favourite photo of us, and he states that he told us to ‘act moody’. I don’t know what my favourite photo is, because by default I always look for the obvious differences that separate us. I like seeing Her in person; then I don’t see my wider, shorter face next to Hers, I just see Her.
Two childhood staples growing up were the Parent Trap (the 1998 version of course) and the Harry Potter series. Looking back, both sets of twins are ginger, which may explain some of the appeal just a little bit. These are the only representations of twins in the media that I can recall growing up, and I idolised them. Whilst Hermione was (and always will be) my favourite character, the way that Fred and George finished each other's sentences felt like magic. I sobbed when Fred died, only because the last word they said on screen was ‘Together’, and the scene of George cradling his twin brother in his arms. I couldn’t imagine that, and I refuse to, so I won’t go into too much detail. One fact about this scene that resonated with me was that the actor of George, Oliver Phelps, was crying real tears. He said that he imagined it being real, and I felt a true kinship the day I read the fact. One thing I did envy was their apparent shared consciousness. In ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, Emily Farrah goes on to write ‘The one egg, one sperm, one zygote before it split, there might have been a consciousness. When did it become two consciousnesses? That may be what identical twins experience: the oneness that used to be, before it became twoness.’ I think that I came out of the womb following her, not wanting to be left behind for too long. Constantly following Her around, sharing her friends (who were Her friends first, I’ll admit it now). We had the same likes and dislikes, favourite books and films. Maybe it’s due to nurture and not nature, but I often like to think that we have the same loves because it is stored inside us, from when we were a singular consciousness. No Me or Her, but Us.
I get asked a lot about how I feel now that She lives away for most of the months of the year, now that us has been closer to me and Her than it ever has been. I always say, ‘It’s been so long now that it feels normal when She’s gone.’ I lie, to others and to myself, trying to sloppily cover the hole with tape until She returns. As soon as She comes back, that’s when everything feels normal again, feels right and whole. It’s still strange to me, after nearly three years, when I mention her in a conversation and people say ‘I didn’t know you had a twin!’, though it’s been the biggest part of my personality since I was born. I’m not compared or contrasted by my friends at university because they don’t have anyone to compare me to. I find this odd, and strangely unsettling, almost the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome; being free makes me want to run back.
When we were discussing the topic of life post-university, and the possibility of extending the education both of us craved, She confessed to me that She might not come back to our home town once her degree is over. I’ve outgrown it, She said to me. After our call, I sat by myself for a while in silence. I couldn’t help but think that meant She’d outgrown me, when we’ve always grown together. Everything I have is here, in this town, apart from Her. I haven’t looked at any graduate jobs or Masters outside of our home town because I can’t leave. I have a relationship, an attachment to the cadet squadron we started attending at thirteen, the only house I’ve ever lived in is here. All my memories of us are here. She’s left and grown other roots and I can’t help but feel like the one stuck behind. Then, as I’m pondering my growing maturity (or lack thereof) contrasted with her job, her new house, her graduate plans, She sends me a message, out of the blue. She does this twice a week.
I love you.
I realise that I’m not stuck behind. I’m here, but I’m also on the beach near her house. If She is. She’s in the pub all of our family gatherings were in growing up. If I am. I’m on the way home. If She is.
I don’t think there is any purer form of love than the kind I have for my Sister. She is everything to me. I’m aware that on the grand scale of the universe and every living being inside it, we are only two people, but we could be the last two people on Earth and I would be happy to live out the rest of my days with Her. The names our parents gave us, translated into Italian, ostensibly the most love-filled language, is ‘my darling’.
Thank you for reading my first post! I’ve actually had a bit of time to edit this since I submitted it for an assignment (summer save me).
I thought this could be a fitting introduction, and paying homage to one of my favourite people in the world. :)
Let me know what you think.
Mia
Fun fact, I cried whist reading this for the first time. I love you <3
Congrats on your first post Mia!! Excited to see more from you 🥹🥹