Twins!

In class yesterday (my last! first day of class hopefully) we were asked to introduce ourselves and say something unusual about ourselves. I couldn't think of anything too exciting to say, so I mentioned that I am a twin. The usual barrage of jokes came up with it, as expected, and I played along until it moved onto the next person in line to introduce themselves. Then this morning I discovered that Slate Magazine is publishing on twins today! So I am going to talk about twins too!

Us out partying one night.. a little sweaty,
but it is one of the pictures that we look
the most alike in that I could find.

And the pictures are all of me and S... aww, aren't we sooo cute!

First, I want you all to think about conjoined twins, and imagine how crazy it must be to have to live your whole life without ever losing sight of a person, ever. And, in these twins' case, never escaping them even in your mind. There are also the twins that only have two legs between the two of them. Here's a video about the Hensel twins who are now old enough to have crushes but share one body... One controls the right side and the other controls the left side just so that they don't argue any more. The video talks about one of them having a crush on someone.. but the idea of a relationship with just one of them would be difficult. I admit that I always felt that people thought it was weird to date either S or me in high school because we were twins.. but can you imagine if we were conjoined?!  So, basically my life really isn't that difficult.

A little bit of a crazy picture, she doesn't actually hate me...
I don't think anyway...

As Slate starts to cover twins they make note that this is a special feature thing, mostly because recent studies have come out saying the number of twins has risen in the last twenty years. ... scary. The idea that twin incidents have gone up does not come as a surprise to me, with InVitro Fertilization (IVF) and other reproductive methods, including hormone pills, etc. more women are increasing the likelihood of twin births, and I think it is a great thing! But I do know a lot of twins who might not agree with me that it is great. S and I are best friends, and we are each others' "other half". I actually identified with this person very well as she said she was looking for a best friend who could share her unusual side with her without taking anything away from it. Her article also talks about the obsession with multiple births that has been around since multiple births have been around. Her mention of the quintuplets that were put into a circus and then abused by their parents makes me cry inside, and reminds me of the connection I felt with Jewish twins from the Holocaust when I read Children of the Flames about Dr. Mengele, a Nazi camp director who did experiments on twins that were brought in. The guilt the healthy twin would feel as the other twin was experimented on was something I know I would have felt if I were in that position, and I often tell people that the worst thing that COULD happen in my life would be S dying. Yet, I am happy to not be in the same city as her, only because we don't need anyone else when we are together.

We really do have a connection, and it goes beyond our
amazing dance skills!

Also, while I don't think that us being twins has anything to do with our parents divorce, I do think that this article is interesting. It talks about how parents of twins tend to have a higher divorce rate than those without twins. It is a slight number, but it makes me think that raising twins is different than raising other children. I always say that if I have kids, I would want twins because I don't want just one kid but I wouldn't want to do pregnancy twice. However, I also think that perhaps I wouldn't know how to raise a child who was not a twin. I have never experienced not being a twin, so maybe I couldn't relate to someone who was not a twin, and would not know how to deal with things that come up in their lives because it is so different than the way mine went.

anyway, enjoy the twin crazies, and the pictures of S and me, and just think of how crazy it is that more people are having multiple births and imagine what it would be like if all of America were a land of twins.. and then thank whoever you want to thank that it is NOT a land of twins. Because then we would all be crazy!

And I think being a twin makes me a happy person, I always
know that I have someone who will not judge me for my
dorkiness

R