Growing up as a twin is such an important part of who I am, yet it dissipates as soon as I step onto Lehigh’s campus after each break. My twin brother and I used to be separated by a hallway, but now it’s 794.2 miles.
Jake and I are fraternal twins, meaning our genetic makeup is not identical. We don’t look the same or have the same allergies, and we most certainly don’t act the same.
We were born exactly a minute apart, so I’m the oldest, and Jake’s my younger brother — I won’t ever let him forget it.
The brother-sister-twin dynamic shook up our household. My mother jokes that we were a lot to handle, even while in the womb.
Psychologists theorize that birth order plays an important role in personality development. I think I tend to fit the oldest sibling stereotype just a little too well.
My grandma always tells me that when we were younger, I tried to “mother” my brother. In pictures, she says, you can see me trying to convince him to pick up my Barbies instead of his Hot Wheels. She says her favorite picture of us is me running along next to each other, holding his hand.
Jake and I couldn’t be more different, but I have every reason to thank him for who I am.
We did everything together, but we still had room to flourish individually. Jake and I always attended the same schools but in different classes. My parents started this in kindergarten. Still, I’d always help him with his English and Spanish homework, and he’d help me with math and science.
We both played tennis for years. I refused to play against him, though, because there can’t be twins without a sibling rivalry, of course. We attended the same co-ed sleepaway camp for almost a decade, and when I first went without him in 2022, it was the longest we’d ever spent apart.
By the end of high school, Jake and I graduated with the same GPA to the hundredth decimal point.
Looking back, I guess you could say we were “twinning.”
Before Jake and I left for college, I wrote him a letter citing predictions I have for the future. I hoped that if either of us chooses to have kids, they’ll be just as close as we are and that despite our different aspirations for the future, we’ll always find time for each other.
Now, being at college away from my best friend, I’m still struggling to navigate my life without that shared hallway. I’m so fortunate to have met incredible people at Lehigh, yet I often find myself wishing that just one person could be here.
I don’t believe in twin telepathy, but I do know that when you know someone well enough, one look is worth more than words could ever describe.
No matter what I’m going through — grief from the loss of a loved one, drama or academic stress — one look of reassurance from my twin brother makes me know I’m alright.
In my last opinion piece for The Brown and White, I talked about navigating growing pains. And while, yes, watching “Friends” definitely helps, there’s nothing like your comfort person.
I know it’d be really nice to have the answers to offer to readers in this section. But I’m afraid I don’t have a clear one.
I can say this, though — the people you miss, whether it be your biological family or chosen one, is a part of who you are. I believe we build strong, enduring relationships with people that innately bring out the best in us.
So, in a way, these people are always with us.
Though Jake and I are divided by 794.2 miles, I know I’ll always carry the parts of him I need. And when I think of it that way, all that distance is just a hallway’s length away.
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