My Mirror Image

You might be surprised to find out I don't have telepathic powers. As a twin, that's an issue that I somehow have to address frequently. Twins are an enigma, I've heard, a subject of curiosity. Let me shed some light on the facts for you.

We can't really hear each other's thoughts. A glance, sometimes, is all we need in the place where others might require a whole conversation. But there's nothing paranormal about it - we're just as close as nature's genetic cookie cutouts can be.

I've never spoken my "own language." As far as I can remember, my twin brother Caleb and I never invented our own lingo (well, unless you count the oddball sense of humor that only the two of us share, such as staccato eighth notes in symphonies, and violent anim?(c) to name only a few). If that kind of thing actually happens, I can't imagine why you'd need a fail-proof kidney donor to share it with.

And no, if you punch him, I won't feel it. But you probably will when I punch you for doing it. Jeremy Burton might even say we'd all enjoy a deep sense of dark satisfaction for the whole thing having happened.

When you look so much like the closest person in your life that you're hardly ever addressed by your first name, a little bit of an identity crisis comes with the title "twin." You come to desire the feel for individuality, but to reach that would mean losing the closeness and comfort of duplicity.

See, there's a safety net nestled away in the fact that you'll always have a partner in crime with whom you can share the blame. Or even better, always knowing that there's someone who will unconditionally and undoubtedly "get" you. Have you ever felt like just no one understands?

Well, I haven't, I've always had Caleb.

Actually, I'm probably not even "Silas." When we were infants, my brother and I were impossible to tell apart without our name bracelets. When they came off one day and we were found tumbling around in our Popple toys without them, it was arbitrarily decided that I must be Silas and he must be Caleb. How's that for an identity crisis.

My relationship with my brother has existed, with the exception of a small handful of minutes, the entire length of my life. That's not something the closest of best friends can always say. Where two friends can fall out of touch and just stop being close, that's an impossibility for the brother who can give you his ID so you can take his exam for him.

Not that we'll admit to ever having done that.

No, we rely on that closeness to make our decisions about the future. We schedule our lives around the possibility of being together, instead of going our own ways and doing what suits us best. Because what suits me best is spending my life with the person I'm so close with, I've gotten memories mixed up with him.

There's a whole language of things that go understood, unspoken. There's no need to say thank you or goodbye, because we have a comfort level that extends beyond politeness. I wish I could have that with more of my friends.

Take my word for it, I guess. You're missing out. I'll leave you with this: based on my column headshot, can you guess which of these is me? I promise, you'll get it wrong.