“Gosh, I wish I was a twin,”

I honestly think you don’t. And I say that with all the love in my heart.

Being a twin is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me. I cannot imagine not having someone with me that has just always been there. My twin is my best friend and partner in crime, as cliche as it sounds. Now more than ever, the cliches about twins are splattered all over social media with the hashtag goals. Honestly too, it’s pretty flipping fantastic. We both have double the clothes since we are the same size, I always have someone to understand me when I’m going through something, and there’s just this connection. We have learned what each other’s facial expressions mean, and we can have a whole conversation just by glances and expressions. Speaking of talking, we also can finish each other’s sentences, or we say the same thing exactly together like synchronized swimmers. I have a bond with another human that no one can replicate no matter how hard they try.

But there’s a lot that goes into being a twin that lots of people don’t think about or refuse to see.

For starters, there’s that subtle refusal to acknowledge me as an individual. There are countless people that just call me by a name that both my sister or I will respond to. Looking back on things, there are some people who I have never actually heard call me by name. And I’m not someone who is crazy about getting my name right. I also don’t have an issue with being lumped together with my twin with phrases like “The Obermeyer’s” or “The Twins.” My issue is when I’m alone with my sister nowhere in sight, and I get some crap name. I would rather someone call me by the wrong name every single time they saw me but make the effort.

Then there’s the assumption that you’re best friends. All the time. 24/7. Being with someone as much as I have been, we’re quite past the best friend mark. We have a relationship that no label will truly describe. Sure, the all-nighters talking about life and always being able to drag someone into an adventure does make us so close, but the fact that we live in the same house and always see each other means that fights are simply unavoidable. They’ll start small with something like cleaning the bathroom, and then they’ll escalate quickly into something much uglier. My twin is my best friend at home, but that doesn’t count in social situations. Always being told, “But your twin will be there! That counts as a friend” is the most invalid statement I’ve ever heard. Number one, I left the house to be social and see friends, not the person I live with. Number two, sometimes I get sick of my twin. It’s a natural thing that we don’t want to be with each other 24/7. And number three, we are beyond the friendship thing at this point, which makes the entire statement invalid.

Finally, there’s the hardest of all things. All of my actions directly impact another human. Being a teenager is hard enough, and I’ve quickly had to learn that every single thing I do is a direct funhouse mirror of my sister. What I mean is people see my sister and I as the same, even when we are different. There have been situations where someone blames my twin for something I did that she had no involvement in. There are times when I say something, then things get twisted, and my sister becomes the speaker of a statement that never crossed her mind. Things can get messy quickly. I’ve learned that no matter how hard we try to differentiate ourselves from each other, we just can’t. Because of that, everything thing I do has the whole weight and impact of another human counting on me.

All in all, I just can’t imagine not being a twin, and at the end of the day though, I would never in my life want to change the fact I am a twin. I would, however, want to make the hard things suck a little less.