Story of Growing Up as an Identical Twin and Overcoming Adversity

Story time:

*Note this comes from a standpoint of someone who's met few other sets of twins, was never close with any of them, and they were all fraternal, including my estranged first cousins. I am also in my 20s!

I do not like comparing myself to others, especially my sister, but I've been thinking a bunch lately. I've always wondered how family dynamics worked and in a family with multiple siblings, constitutes a "perfect child" vs a "problem child". Starting with being born and not being able to control who's older or younger, sometimes, your sibling can be a few years older or younger than you. Imagine being born the same day, or even the same hour as someone. From birth, I guess I was always supposed to be the one who got kicked around. My parents said I was getting pushed around inside my mom's stomach. To my not so disbelief, my sister was born a minute before me, making me "the younger sibling" by technicality. I didn't see a minute as meaning anything and saw us on the same playing field. A minute to her meant everything. She stole my toys, was always selfish, and tried to boss me around, and still tries to boss me around to this day. We were both picked on a little in high school, but my being picked on started even before preschool when a boy named Joseph would pull my hair tie and stick it inside the plastic holes in the slide. Her being picked on was brief and mine lasted until the end of college, while I was even bullied by her. I ended up having a worse relationship with my parents, being looked at as the "problem child"; whenever my sister would get picked on by people, it would trickle onto me, and then trickle onto a pen and paper. Unsurprisingly, I've been diagnosed with depression.

I've noticed in a lot of sets of twins, one has a medical problem at birth and the other is healthy. I was obviously the one with the medical problem, but said medical problem is gone thankfully. I was the "expense" because I had medical problems. I felt like I was treated different, and probably was I'm sure. My sister also seemed to have a smoother ride in college. Our grades were generally always the same, we scored similarly on standardized tests and moved up the same in karate as a child. But I ended up being the one who's laptop broke. I was the one who lost several credits, failed 2 classes and had to go to summer school in order to graduate on time, who took longer to get a job and internship, who had the roommate and apartment problems, the mental health problems, the gaining weight, treated poorly by men, etc. The more problems I had in college, the more and more I was the problem child. The more and more I was picked on and treated poorly, the more and more I began realizing I was different and had different heart beat (literally). I had to keep pushing through adversity. Before I finished school, I had a 4 hour conversation with a 37 year old (at the time) marine veteran who explained to me the benefits of being different and how to handle being the problem child. Shortly after that and coming into contact with Belegarth (my nerd group of awesomeness), I began accepting how even though my parents tried to steer me away from being different, being myself will overall make me happy and advance down my chosen and destined path. My sister would conform to my parents and I would still do my own thing (while still trying to follow the rules as much as possible). I did not realize being different would promote ridicule, but as soon as I broke free, I continued to be different and myself. I would end up reading articles with the end result basically saying how the ones who distinguish themselves from others are the ones who were different. I am very lucky to have found the enlightened path at the end of the tunnel of all the crap I put up with from birth to the end of college and then some. Twins, identical or fraternal, are NOT the same people. Who you become is based on your environment. And one measly minute doesn't matter in the end. Hardships only make you stronger.

The Divine Passage Prelude: Revised

Yep, this prelude was about 3+ years old. Time for an overhaul. I also chopped it down from 3 pages to 1 and actually have started writing the first chapter. For now though, here's a much better sounding prelude:

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Growing up in an ordinary middle class family from Chicago with two married parents and an identical twin sister named Monica, 25 year-old Maron was trying to find her place in the world through making a difference and inspiring others. Throughout childhood, Maron and Monica participated in the same activities, made the same friends, and were basically attached at the hip. Unfortunately for whatever reason, Maron had been bullied since age 3 in early childhood school; the bullying traveled with her through the beginning of her senior year in college. Trying to keep her mental health afloat with all of the bullying, she started seeing a counselor in third grade. To top it off, Maron’s relationship with her parents was extremely rocky. Searching for solace and happiness, tragedy ended up striking.

Maron was diagnosed with depression at age 12 when her dad was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, causing her to ponder about a permanent escape. She was also diagnosed with anxiety attributed to a hormone imbalance at age 16 and had infrequent panic attacks. After a slew of begging her parents to transfer schools during freshman year of high school, the failed begging and loneliness drew Maron to pursue writing. Maron and Monica were best friends with Kyle from elementary school through sophomore year of high school until he passed away of a drug overdose; Maron wishes she could have expressed her worry to Kyle before it was too late. This unfortunately caused the depression to grow worse, especially because neither Maron nor Monica had many other friends. Kyle had been a major influence on Maron and Monica, promoting the beauty of web development and prompting them to pursue a technology degree in college. However, Monica had wanted to break free from Maron to establish her own identity and did everything in her power to shove Maron out of the way. 

College was quite the rough transition for Maron as well. She had marching band as a starting place to make some friends and establish herself. Marching band was also off to a rough start because the section leaders yelled at Maron prior to the very first scrimmage game, thus, giving Maron a sour taste in her mouth for the remainder of her time in Marching Band. Later during freshman year of college, Maron joined the Sisterhood of the Purple Flower. This group helped Maron find a lot of her code of ethics and helped her find her passion for volunteerism, but she was unfortunately bullied out of that towards the end of her college career.  College classes were a struggle for Maron as she pounded energy drinks and unhealthy snack food to take her through the grind of late night studying and library ventures. The unhealthy eating came with its consequences and Maron ballooned about 60 pounds. Luckily, in an IT class, Maron ended up meeting a man named Mike, who later became her college best friend. By the time junior year of college rolled around, Maron’s mental health continued to decline.

One day, Maron stumbled into the campus Rabbi’s office of Rabbi Brown. After a deep conversation with Rabbi Brown, he told her about the trip of a lifetime, called the “Divine Passage”, where participants travel to Israel for 12 days and explore the Holy land and culture. This would be the first time Maron would begin separating herself from Monica, on January 1, 2020, enabling Maron to finally begin finding her identity. Once college was over, Maron was introduced to a community known as “Destiny’s Reach”. From that point forward, Maron was finally in a safe place where she could be herself. With each day of the Divine Passage trip symbolizing a pivotal point in Maron’s life, Maron was finally able to find happiness, spread joy to others, and inspire others to follow their dreams!