A New Answer

For the past several weeks I've looked at my sweet daughter and had a perplexing feeling of sadness.  I wasn't sad for me, but was sad for her.  I couldn't quite figure it out.  She has never seemed unhappy or in need, but something was just unsettling to me and seemed out of place.  For a while I didn't give it much consideration -- it was a passing thought of puzzlement from time to time as I fed her or played with her.  Finally, just this past week, and quite out of the blue it hit me.  I was projecting loneliness on her.  Without naming the emotion, what I had been feeling was an anxiety over the fact that Magnolia was without a twin and without a best friend.  

To you perhaps this is quizzical.  More babies than not are born alone.  I have never been alone.  I don't know what it feels like.  I have always and will for ever have a best friend in my twin sister.  Sure we joke about it -- that we are "womb mates," but the fact of the matter is I was specially blessed in my birth.  

People have always asked the question, "Do you like being a twin?"  My usual answer has come with a tone of amusement tinged with annoyance, "How am I supposed to know? I've never had anything else to compare it to" (rude, I know).

Perhaps now, as a mother of one, I do have a comparison.  In all honesty, though, they are incomparable.  I know that Magnolia isn't lonely & that she is happy and she is loved.  But still, she will never know what I know.  So as I reflect on my feelings of the last several weeks I feel my answer to the old question will now be a bit more complex and come from a deeper place of my heart.

Do I like being a twin?

Yes.  It was the very first joy of my life.