The Frustrations of Being a Twin

The blessing of being a twin is unexplainable and far beyond words or comprehension, but that doesn't mean that it's all sunshine and roses...

There are things about being a twin that are difficult. In fact, I've had twins say that they don't like being a twin and they don't talk to or even like their twin. Which is really hard for us to fathom and in our opinion, very sad.

The thing is, well, there are several things...in our younger days, we always felt like we were in competition with each other, even though we weren't competing with each other. People were always saying things to us like "You're the pretty twin", "You're the fun twin", "You're the smart twin", "You're the nice twin", and it always made us feel bad because it wasn't like we were looking to be better than each other at anything. We were just being ourselves.

And it always makes us cringe when someone says, "So, which one is the good twin and which one is the evil twin?!"!! Seriously!? You watch too many movies and we really don't find that comment amusing, it's actually quite lame.

When you are young and life is already difficult and you're trying to figure out who you are, it's really hard to do that when you have a twin, someone who looks like you, sounds like you, has the same mannerisms as you...it's exciting and fun, but it's also difficult when you really just want you're own identity and people to see you for who you are and not compare you to your twin all the time.

While we are very much alike in many ways, we are also very different.

We didn't really get along during our teenage years. It took us many years to sort through things, so we didn't really have a good relationship until we were in our mid twenties.

Then, we both moved to a new town where nobody knew us. Things got confusing when we each made friends and they would see us out and about thinking it was the twin they knew, but it was actually the other.

One day, I (Brandy) was at the store and the cashier said to me, "You know, you were in here about three weeks ago with your husband and I thought that you were Mindy so I went home and told my husband that Mindy was cheating on Brent!"! YIKES!

Another time, I was at a local restaurant and someone that Mindy worked with saw me. He went to work the next day and said to her, "Why didn't you say hi to me last night?!". She told him that it wasn't her, it was probably her twin and at first, he didn't believe her, but it was me.

There have been several instances like this, which is why we made our "I have a twin..." t-shirt!! We often get weird looks from people and we can't help but wonder if they think we are each other.

It's hard because when people see your twin thinking that it's you (not knowing that you have a twin) and your twin doesn't acknowledge them because they don't know them, they think that you are mad at them or something. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so it makes us sad when that happens.

Our mom always made us each our own birthday cakes and we each got our own gifts growing up, but there are some twins that don't get that. They have to share everything as if they are one person. We couldn't imagine that, being treated as if you are one person instead of two separate people because you were born together. That would be extremely difficult.

All that being said, even with these frustrations, being a twin is one of the biggest blessings that Mindy and I could ever have received and we are so grateful for the gift of being born twins!!