Let me start off by congratulating Caroline on a great job on her first essay, she really is getting quite good at her little writing hobby and wow! What content! But while science gives you the facts, it doesn’t really give you the story. What is it like being an identical twin, and further, what is it like being a DONADIO twin? Let me explain:
When Caroline and I were 12 we were in the 7th grade. This was exactly one year after the 6th grade, a time I (not lovingly) refer to as the dark ages. I’m not going to get into this because Caroline is really sick of me telling everyone what a terrible twin she was to me that year and how she used to call me a scrub while I sat at the nerd table and she was best friends with Leah and Alissa the MOST popular girls in school. No, I will be the bigger person and just say that - middle school was a tough time for a lot of kids and that out the goodness of my very mature heart I forgive Caroline. However 7th grade was different than 6th, and despite the fact that Caroline set her popularity on fire and couldn’t care less, we still struggled to find a connection. I was still in my late blooming phase of wondering why no one wanted to play Jurrasic Park on the play ground anymore and Caroline was a stoic badass that really was much cooler then me. ANYWAYS. there we were. twins together, yet apart. We sat at separate lunch tables, had different classes, and didn’t interact much outside of the home. But we did however find one thing we could do together, one thing that we did before it was vogue (twins are often trend setters), a means of communication, some would say “fun” . What was this hobby you ask? This shared passion that brought us together, bridging our animosity with more animosity? Cyber bullying. Extreme cyber bullying of each other. A feat we pulled off without giving a hint to the outside world (no suicide attempts here), and not only was this ours - this was personal. So while Hanah or Heather or whatever her name is (that girl who wore all the sweet wolf tshirts) was making her list of people she wanted dead, Caroline and I were carefully eyeing each other out of the corner our eyes in the cafeteria planning our next move. Who would make it home first? Who would win the race to the 13 minute dial up connection to check the sacred AOL account (I believe my username was raven86) and send off the first of a string of back and forth insults all saying something along the lines of “IS THE BABY GOING TO CRY, DOES THE BABY NEED HER BOTTLE, and (my personal favorite) SOMEBODY CALL THE WAHMBULANCE THE BABY IS CRYING”. And let me tell you (and not without a hint of pride) - Caroline was fucking RUTHLESS. She took things wayyy too far and I totally wish we had those it gets better videos when I was a kid because JESUS. But still .This is a story of love. And while I cowered, feared, and yes - respected Caroline for her courage to take me down we were communicating, we were competing, and most importantly - we were laughing (you know when I wasn’t crying). It is these 3 things that most defines our relationship and if there’s anything the two of us have for each other, maybe the most special, is respect for the victor of an argument or (in this case) a war. We concede when the other one is clearly better and even laugh about it in the future. Middle school, while fucking awful, is one of my favorite twin periods because this is when the ball really got rolling on our dynamic.. Picking, bickering, arguing, joking. Things we still partake in often and with zeal. People always ask us if we have our own secret twin talk. Some dumb secret thing we made up to communicate in the crib that makes us “special”. And while I shudder at the very thought of being like the discovery channel twins, the answer is yes - we have our own language. Wit. Jokes. Insults. A means of communication we have worked hard to develop, a unique language in which we are fluent.
-A
