The Twin Thing: An Identity Story
A Challenging Experience // by Matty Novick
Perhaps nothing says more about you than the relationships you have with your family. Unlike your friends, who you can choose for any number of reasons, you don’t choose your family. They just arrive, fully packaged. The relationships between yourself and family members embody an acceptance and familiarity that can’t be beaten. These relationships serve as a means of producing your own identity, but they can also serve as a means of hindering your own identity. You can choose to separate yourself from those around you, but eventually your interactions with mom, dad, brother, sister, come together to cultivate a significant portion of the person you are. Families constitute a group of immutable individuals who surround you from the moment you are born — no one else has the power or emotional impact to influence you quite as much.
Balancing family with self identity is an art form often struggled with by many individuals.
I was born a peanut, as my dad likes to say. There were two of us in one shell. We shared a single space for 9 months. My twin sister Emma and I share similar traits: we are competitive, sometimes to a fault, kind, and loyal. It is not surprising, considering we were born 14 seconds apart, that we look similar: short with dark hair. There is one visible difference, though: she is three inches taller.
There are perks of being a twin: she is my built-in-from-birth best friend, there is always a connection between us. We can use each other as scapegoats, I always have a fun fact to share for 2 truths & 1 lie. Two groups of friends equals twice the number of people, presents, and cake at parties. We can tease people if they confuse us for one another. But there are some downsides as well. Emma and I are always being compared, confused for one another, and asked things like, “Who’s the evil one?” and “If I hurt you, would she feel it?” The answers are no, we are not one and the same, we do not have a type of twin telepathy, and neither one of us is evil.
Because we grew up together and were always deemed a “package,” we practically meshed into one person. We look, speak, and think alike. We finish each other’s sentences. Sometimes when we tell a story, we alternate — telling it between pauses. We also speak at the same time, like we’re one person. When people say “hi” to us we say “hi” back, synchronized. It’s weird even to us.
Emma is the one who yanked on my front tooth out of unconditional love, till we both had tiny gaps in our second grade smiles. I had been upset all day because Emma ran up to me during recess and announced she lost her first tooth. She was proud of the bloody hole on the side of her mouth, but I was sad because I couldn’t relate to her experience. Emma promised me she would remove a tooth of my choosing as soon as we got home. The second we got off the school bus, we ran up to our pink bathroom and pointed to the tooth I wanted out. We sat there for what seemed like hours, wrestling with the tooth until it finally gave way. It was a simple and common gesture in our relationship. All we wanted for each other was to be included in the joy we both experienced — the joy that would accompany our first visit from the tooth fairy.
My most challenging experience was undoubtedly separating from my twin sister.
We had shared schools and activities from preschool all the way through 9th grade. It was comforting to have a person I could sit with at lunch, do homework with, or confide in about the usual school drama. When we decided to leave the school we attended, I assumed that we would start anew at a new school together. Emma, however, chose a private school. I wanted a change. I transferred to a large, public high school and my sister went to a small, all girls’ Catholic school. I felt lost without her, as if I was entering a new terrain. Unfamiliar and disquieting. For the first time, I had to live my own narrative without her guidance.
From the very first day we enrolled in different high schools, our relationship shifted. I knew I had to force myself to build a new identity apart from her. Because we had been a package for so long, I felt extremely anxious, a feeling different from what I had experienced in other years. As I made my way down the long corridor, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated. So many people were passing through the halls. Teachers were opening their classroom doors for the first time since June; students hugged each other affectionately and talked about how long it had been since they had last seen one another. I, instead, was alone. I no longer had someone by my side to join me in taking this leap into a strange, new surrounding. In a sea of unfamiliar faces, I felt insignificant, a minnow among predators. Really… Just... Alone.
Feeling small was nothing new to me, but this was a new kind of smallness. My diminutive stature has often seemed to define me, and I, along with my similarly small twin sister, have grown accustomed to being regarded as “tiny”, “cute” or mistaken for being younger than our actual age. Often, my size has given people reason to expect less of me. But with my sister beside me, I always felt that I somehow took up more space; together we were bigger. I grew up as one half of the “Novick twins” or “Matty and Emma.” Socially, it lulled me into feeling that I carried more weight. In reality, my sister’s constant presence probably allowed me to shoulder less than I would have had I not been born a twin.
So how does my experience of cultivating an identity apply to someone who has not had to deal with the separation from a twin? It is simple. Whether you have another sibling who you simultaneously love and compete with, a parent who guides you, or even a close friend, it is important to take a step back and understand your own significance.
Create your own identity apart from the labels, preconceptions, and ideas of others who place them on you.
Once you find your own way and understand your own significance the possibilities and achievements you are capable of become endless. In a way, we all have to separate from family when we reach certain milestones: we separate from parents (when we begin to crave the company of friends), siblings (when our own experiences divide us into different schools, colleges, relationships, and locations), and friends (when we separate into different groups or outgrow what originally pulled us together).
The human need to separate, though at times difficult and perhaps painful, makes us stronger in the end. Maintaining what’s essential to our relationship while exploring our own territories and writing our personal narratives has made Emma and I incredibly strong, unleashing our own potentials and cheering each other on as we navigate our separate paths.
Emma and I now attend the same college. We don’t room together because, as close as we are, we both recognize that we have to continue to cultivate and maintain our separate identities. But I must confess it’s wonderful to head to her room and walk to classes together. That “twin thing” that started the moment we were born — or maybe even earlier — continues to exert its power over us but in a way that finally lets me breathe and achieve on my own.
Individual experiences, both positive and negative, help us better understand our own significance.
I believe being able to move past obstacles helps you to understand your place in the world. Everyone deals with issues that other people can or cannot relate to, but the way in which we overcome our problems is often specific to ourselves, our values, and our desires. Our choices make us individuals and help us understand the true power we have to succeed and push through life’s challenges. For me, physical limitations can often impede my sense of self, but by separating myself from my twin, I have been able to create an entire identity that gives me strength, confidence, and courage that exceeds size.
