Growing up, my twin brother and I didn't get always get along. We would fight over just about anything and a lot of the time. From the start, we were very different, even as we shared almost everything from a room and toys, to school classrooms and sporting activities. Anywhere we went, people made sure to keep us together and sometimes, that only made things worse. My parents and older brother used to remind us that when we were in the car as little kids, my twin and I would lose our heads if the other was looking out 'our' window. We would even say something along the lines of "Mom, he's/she's looking out my window!" to which she would respond that it was her car, thus making them her windows and that anybody could look out any of the windows.

Some fights were outlandish and quite silly, while others grew serious and we'd start throwing punches. He once gave me a black eye and a bloody nose and I once broke a bunch of his toes, though while they may have been accidents, they usually stemmed from our fights. To me, the verbal fights were the worse. When we entered into a blind rage, as most siblings do, we would shout the most awful things to each other, even if we didn't necessarily believe it to be true. Among all the harsh things that were ever said, there was one statement he had said that hurt more than any punch ever could, and I'm sure I said one of those phrases to him as well. Reflecting back though, I do remember that while we may have fought often, there were many memories where we got along just fine.

My twin and I, to my knowledge, never became super close as some twins do. We may have supported each other and agreed on many things, but we never had that best friend relationship. In middle school and through a good portion of high school, we didn't associate with each other all that much. In middle school band and our time in YMCA soccer together, we got along pretty well, but he had his friend group and I had mine. It wasn't until junior year that we actually acknowledged each other at school and became closer than we had been. I mean, let's face it, we didn't even show up to most of each other's games and contests, mostly because they were at or around the same time, but I think that we also felt that we didn't have to.

If I had to take a guess, I believe that we acted this way because we got sick and tired of classmates and other people refering to us as each other's twin. When you hear somebody refer to you as somebody else's twin, it sort of make you feel as if you aren't your own individualistic person. When he went with sports and I stuck with band, it was almost as if people had completely stopped referring to us as anybody other than ourselves and that was a good feeling. We still supported each other and got along, for the most part, but we never really tried to impose on the other's activites or friend circles. As I stated earlier, we were very different individuals who were just trying to be our own person.

My brother and I had laughed together, cried together, and been on many adventures together and I love him to death. Sometimes I wish we had been closer growing up, but I know that things were the way they were for a reason. We are both strong and intelligent - he in his maths and sciences and me in my english and arts - and while it would have been awesome to have been best friends growing up, we learned to be independent of each other early on, because we didn't need to rely on each other often. Don't get me wrong, if he ever needed anything, I wouldn't hesitate to help him and probably vice-versa, but we found strength in our own abilities and we get along better now, more than we ever had before. Each set of twins has different experiences and I believe we helped each other find our strengths indirectly, by choosing not to be best friends growing up.