As I start this article, I find myself in a duly familiar place: the passenger seat of our family's 1998 Lincoln Navigator. My brother dips his non-driving hand into a bag of the snack du jour (Combos this time) as I absentmindedly fumble with the car's impossibly temperamental stereo system. We both want nothing more than for me to land on a channel playing Kanye… or "Toxic" by Britney Spears, but that’s likely too much to ask for.
About a year ago today, he and I were in the same car driving our same southern Connecticut roadways. The only real difference then is that we were both mid-year high school seniors with college applications and midterms on our minds. Curiously enough, though, my fraternal-yet-so-similar twin brother and I had not yet fielded the idea of going to college together.
When compiling lists of potential schools, he and I had many reasons why the two of us together at college wouldn't be the best decision. The first of these was the less-than-conventional "we'd be such good friends that we would have no other friends." In hindsight, that point, once so steadfast, now seems a bit silly. Don’t get me wrong, we still are incredibly close; but because of the clubs that we’ve joined and the activities we participate in, we’ve grown to have fairly different groups of friends. I can’t believe I didn’t realize before that my interest in music and his interest in crew would lead us to new and very different friendships, but at least I made the right decision in spite of my misinformation.
As for the more typical twin concerns, we assumed in a general sense that it would be healthy to have an extended break from each other and that developing independent sets of friends might be a cool way to grow divergently. For many sets of twins, a break from each other can be a positive experience especially if they don’t get along well. I know surely that being away from my parents for my short time at college has made me appreciate their presence in my life.
For me, though, separating from my twin would not have been positive because honestly, I was and still am not ready to lose my best friend.
Leaving behind most of my high school friends was inevitable as I watched some scatter across the country to different colleges and some stay put in Connecticut, far from my current home in Burlington. But I was able to cope with temporarily or permanently losing my friends because I both anticipated their leaving my life and because I always had my brother. I could wax poetic for thousands of words about how he and I are best friends and finish each other’s sentences and have an odd tendency to fight over phone chargers, but I won’t.
I will, however, give any twins out there some friendly advice. If you two have a relationship like that of my brother and me, then at least consider going to the same college. If you two are best friends and unfailingly duet "Hips Don’t Lie" whenever it comes on in the car, then please consider it. I’m more comfortable at the University of Vermont with my brother here, I’ve come to meet many new people because of him, and he’s honestly way more fun to hang out with than most of the people I’ve met on this campus because he knows me like no one else does.
A twin is more than a friend and even family and I’m forever grateful that we chose to go to college together.
