Whenever I think about it, it feels funny to think how different my life would be if I wasn’t an identical twin. My sister and I, born only a minute a part from one another, have been together since the womb and have gone through our entire lives together so far.

Do I love being a twin? Yes.

Do I love my sister? Absolutely.

Do I love what comes with being a twin? Not always.

Now, many of you may be shocked about my response to my last question. What can be so bad about being a twin? To many, they wish to be a twin, to have someone by their side always and understand them like no one else. Believe me, I love those aspects of being a twin too. I always have someone with me in any situation; someone to talk to and hang out with; someone to be the left to my right (literally); and someone I can grow up with to get through the struggles of my teenage years. Those are all reasons why being a twin is so great, but nothing is ever perfect.

When I was growing up, I always wanted to have some sense of identity and individuality for myself. It is hard to achieve this when people assume that twins, especially identical twins like myself, act the same and therefore must do everything together. I can not count how many times people have asked me, “are you and your sister the same? What’s it like being a twin? Who’s (blank) than the other twin?” And now, parents constantly ask, “are you ready to be separated when you go off to college?”

To start my response: yes, we share 99.9% of the same DNA and yes, we have shared a room for the past 18 years, but this does not qualify us as being the same in any way; no twin is better than the other; and yes, we are ready to move on our own paths.

My friends and family can both say that we are two completely different people with different personalities, hobbies, and strengths. My sister took a liking to science and math growing up, played water polo, was involved in ASB in high school, and is heading to UC Berkeley in the fall. For myself, I fell in love with writing and reading at an early age, played soccer and field hockey, joined the high school newspaper and Mock Trial team, and will be going to Northwestern University in September. If you didn’t know we were identical twins, I bet you would have thought we were two unrelated people.

I attribute part of our differences because we were born two months early and mainly because we decided to do our own activities growing up without each other. I believe this helped us both immensely. We became defined as not just twins growing up, but as two separate individuals that happen to be twins off on our own ways doing our own things.

We have formed our own identities while still being coined “the twins” in our friend group, have had great costumes together during Halloween, and are ready for our own endeavors. My sister and I are different, different than most twins, and I love that.