My (Invisible) Twin

Written in November 2015

When people meet me, a few things are immediately evident: I have high energy. I’m loud. Animated. Extremely energetic. I think — and talk — too much. I’m “a lot.”

A friend once joked, “It’s like you’re living for two people.”

Maybe it’s because I am.

I was a twin, and she was miscarried. Her name was Haley. She was healthy, and nobody knows why she didn’t survive. My mom jokes that I ate her. (I sure hope I didn’t.)

I don’t talk about it much — not because it’s something that upsets me or makes me sad — but because, to be honest, I rarely think about it. And it’s clearly not something that comes up in everyday conversation. But people always freak out when I say I was a twin.

Was a twin.

To me, it’s not morbid because I never knew her. But it’s very weird, a crazy mindfuck, when I do let myself delve into a world where I would’ve had a true “other half,” a partner-in-crime, another me.

I have polarizing thoughts. I truly think I would’ve either hated or completely loved having a twin. More so the latter.

In one mindset, would we have gotten along? Would we have had that strange twin connection, that sixth sense that we incessantly hear stories about? Would she have been smarter? Cooler, funnier, prettier, better at the things I do?

I’m a pretty competitive person. And I’m jealous. The two features, in and of themselves, create an unhealthy combination; but with a twin who would’ve excelled at live, as compared to me, having a “Kaelyn 2.0” would’ve sucked.

However, that fleeting pang of irrelevant anxiety aside, I think having a twin would’ve irrefutably been the greatest thing in the world.

Growing up, I said one prayer every night (until I found out my mom went through menopause): “God, I want a sister.”

How cool would it have been to not only have had a sister, but also a twin sister at that? I secretly used to watch all of the twin movies — MK&A in “Passport to Paris” (and the other bajillion twin movies they made) and Annie and Hallie in “The Parent Trap” — close my eyes, and picture myself being one of the two on an adventure, complemented by my identical accomplice. (Even “The Shining” made me eerily jealous of the twinning status.)

I can just see it: Kaelyn and Haley, growing up; Kaelyn and Haley, going to college; Kaelyn and Haley, living long distance and pursuing our own, separate dreams but still making time to talk everyday — Kaelyn and Haley walking through this silly journey of life, together.

I know we would’ve been best friends. I know we would’ve made each other better people. I know we would’ve had that creepy twin ESP. Maybe we would’ve even been one of those weird twins that ended up marrying twin brothers.

Ironically — or maybe not so ironically — I got to secondhand experience this phenomenon.

Watching my younger brothers — who, you guessed it, are twins — grow up together was beautiful. It was also an out-of-body experience at times, thinking that I could’ve also had that twin bond, the shared birthday, that made-up language they used to speak to each other as toddlers, those identical birthmarks, with my other half.

I’m not bitter. I think there must be a reason Haley’s not here. Not having a twin enables me to pursue my passions whole-heartedly, unbridled; I don’t have to think about anyone but me.

Not having a twin enables me to manifest my extra love and energy into other relationships, giving those people that I truly, deeply care about 110 percent.

Growing up, not having a twin enabled my mom to become that faux sister, that female figure I so desperately wanted to laugh with, confide in and cry to.

Not having a twin has shaped the person I am. Not having a twin, maybe, was a good thing for me.

But, no doubt, I will always wonder: what if?