Growing up, my twin, Camille, and I did just about everything together.
Looking back, after the age of three I do not think we spent any time away from each other; whether we were dancing on stage together or participating in the same summer camps, we were always together.
The older we got though the more we started to separate and find our own interests.
After seventh grade I decided to go my own path; I quit ballet to run cross country and acted in plays for the last two years of my high school career while Camille stuck with ballet until senior year of high school. During these five years of both doing something different we really started to become each others rocks. We were each others support systems. Camille was always there to cheer me on at cross country meets, and I was always there to watch her dance on stage.
I will not say, however, that it didn’t come with fighting along the way because we wanted to be each others rocks at times when we could not.
At the end of the day I am happy we found our own interests, it gave us something to talk about at night and at times it made us cry because, let’s admit it, life is hard and can take us down roads we didn’t want to go down.
Never in a million years did I think time would go by so fast. Now I wake up, go to bed, and eat everyday without my rock, my support, my favorite person on this planet. I guess that is what it is like to grow apart from someone so close to you.
At times I wish we choose to go to the same colleges and have the same majors; if we did, life would be so much easier.We would no longer have to worry about facetiming or having to hold back tears as we said goodbye after fall break. But at the end of the day growing apart has been for the better.
We, for the first time have been able to find ourselves as an individual and not as a twin.
People call me “Rebecca” and not “the twin”. I have found friends and proved to myself that I can live without Camille. I am not saying going to college with your twin is not healthy or you shouldn’t do this, but we figured college was the perfect time to hang up our old memories and start making new ones.
It is a new journey that I am still struggling with, but not spending as much time together has made my appreciation for her always being there for me ten times greater. Unfortunately, after college who knows if our journeys will meet again.