Hellooo to my first blog post of 2015. My twentieth year of life.
If you don’t know me personally or you haven’t read my little “About me” section on this blog, you won’t know that I have a twin sister named Una. Yep. It’s one of those things that you have to talk about when you meet new people because most of the people I meet end up meeting her at some point. Some of the people I’ve met in college haven’t been prepped about the situation and have been caught out as a result! The amount of times I've had to laugh awkwardly as people fawned over the sight of Una and I together this semester, I've lost count. That's life I suppose!
Being a twin means that your mother has to send you to primary school with badges for the first few years because you look like exact mirror images of each other. Having a twin means that you are sent the exact same clothes and you are left with baby pictures in which you haven't a clue which child is you. Being born on the same day means you have shared a birthday and the BIRTHDAY CAKE which is heartbreaking in itself. Being born a twin means that you will respond to someone calling you your twin's name because you just can't be bothered explaining that you're a twin. Being a twin is sharing a room and having to listen to your twin singing badly, and very loudly on purpose and having her ask you to critique her performance.
Now in 2015, where I'm in college, it's a whole new thing! College is proving to be an interesting experience because for the first time in my life I have a proper separate life. Yes, we do attend the same college, and yes we live in the same student village, but I rarely see her. Our lives barely overlap, and it's both a good and bad thing. Good because for once I'm not being referred to as "one of the twins", bad because it's weird that someone I've been around for the past eighteen years is now not really around anymore.
The longest we've been separated was three weeks and I was fine with it. I used to forget that she was gone and looked for her to remember she was in Galway at Irish college. But I'm not the type of twin that needs their twin to function properly.
I always experience the moments where someone asks the stereotypical question: "Oh do ye speak at the same time?". Of course, the answer is no, but just to make things more awkward Una and I proceed to say "No!" simultaneously. When someone asks me what it’s like being a twin, I have to stop and think. It’s difficult because I have NO IDEA what a life without one is like.
One good thing about twins is that your friends and family learn to know the difference between you. Excluding my grandmother who has to either ask what my sister's name is before attempting to guess or just not even bothering to try and naming me: "Spooky". Friends and family will be able to know by a voice who's who and those are the people that keep me sane in my world of obvious twin questions.
My friend Joanne sent me a Bitbuzz article named "21 Things Only Identical Twins Will Understand". I read this article and agreed with 16 out of 21. My argument is that Una and I are not identical. People will say differently and having argued this on multiple occasions, I now choose to nod and say, oh really?
I'm usually asked the following questions:
- Do ye communicate telepathically? (The answer is no, and I've yet to come across twins that do).
- Do ye like the exact same things? (No, I'm my own person and therefore my likes and dislikes are unique to myself.)
- Do you like being a twin? (It's grand and even if I wasn't happy, I couldn't change things!)
People will always say to you that they'd love to be a twin but it's really not that exciting! At times it can be kind of annoying. But I can't really change the fact that Una exists, and that we share the same birthday. There are a lot of comparisons and sometimes there's a lot of pressure involved with that. We are rivals to some extent but I do tend to try support Una in what she does. We do fight quite a bit but we will defend each other should the occasion rise.
I've yet to go to a twin meetup but I have modeled with pairs of other twins. This is was a traumatic and confusing experience where I had to get used to seeing double all the time and being thrust out in front of hundreds of people at just four years old.
All in all, being a twin is part of me and I don't know anything else.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope for any twins reading this that they can relate.
I also challenge you to try guess who is who in the two photos posted with this.
