Two pairs of little feet paced synchronously across the hardwood floor. Their little hands interlocked as they did laps around the kitchen.  The conversation was one sided, as one little girl rapidly spewed all of her knowledge of the world to the other little listener. The little listener was patient, engaged and appeared to be absorbing all of the information presented to her. Time passed and while their hands were still locked together, and the little girl was still blabbering on and on, the little listener was visibly becoming less and less engaged. With all interest lost, the little listener stopped dead in her tracks, tugging firmly at the hand of the other and shouted “Emma, you’re no genius.”

The little listener and I were only three years old, yet our personalities as toddlers remained nearly identical, or I should say, fraternal over time. Though this story is famous within our family and is often retold at family gatherings, to me, it is more than just a comical tale of two toddlers. This story reveals the roles Abby and I take on as twin sisters. Abby can only listen to me blabber for so long until she feels the need to interject with her helpful yet harsh opinion. Our differences turned everything into a competition, except it felt like I was always in last place. She was crawling, walking, and practically doing flips around me while I remained stagnant on the white sunroom carpet. Naturally, Abby used this period of time as the perfect opportunity to harass me. Not being able to keep up was extremely frustrating for me. I longed to be right there with her, hand in hand, running around and causing mischief. Despite my desire to keep up, a small part of me was perfectly content with sitting in our bright sunroom, admiring and rearranging my beloved collection of pacifiers. This moment of serenity was always a fleeting moment on Abby’s watch. Her main source of amusement became wobbling over to me, scooping up my pacifiers and chucking them across the room with a surprising amount of force for a toddler. As if this didn’t satisfy her enough, she would sit there and laugh as I pathetically attempted to retrieve them, despite being incapable of crawling or walking. Abby didn’t beat me in all categories of our competition, however. I started talking before her, but like Abby so kindly pointed out, that didn’t make me a genius by any means.

Abby may have pestered me and in a way traumatized me during our early years, but those instances do not outweigh the amount of times she’s been there for me. Throughout the course of our lives she has offered me countless pieces of advice, even though I don’t always listen. One time when we were three (yes this was an eventful year for us), we were splashing around in a hot, sudsy bubble bath as my mom alternated washing us. Bath times with Abby consisted of playing with bath toys and watching each other burst into tears when we got shampoo in our eyes that was supposedly “tear free”. My mom told us that she had to go check on our house next door and that it would only take a few minutes. This was not an ideal situation for little me, as I constantly wanted to be at my mom’s side, but Abby and I continued to play for what felt like forever. Then, my anxiety started to kick in. I glanced over at Abby with glassy eyes and said “I need to go find mom”.  “Emma,” Abby said “Just stay here, she said she’d be right back”. Being the advice giver she is, Abby tried to convince me to stay in the tub to the best of her three-year-old capability, but that didn’t stop me. Despite being completely naked, I felt compelled to run outside on a mission to be reunited with my mom as tears flowed from my eyes. My mission came to a harsh end when I was suddenly swooped up by my appalled mother. Even though Abby was clearly right about the whole situation, she never laughed or said “I told you so”, and this trait is still true to her fourteen years later. I have made a lot of mistakes and gone against her advice countless occasions in my life, but she’s never bragged about being right. Instead, she’s been my shoulder to cry on and has still done everything she can to help me despite my noncompliant tendencies.

Even though Abby did beat me to essentially everything, that never stopped her from extending her hand and helping me get there. Reflecting on my past with her makes me realize how little has changed, as she recently beat me by getting her driver’s license first. When the day came for me to get mine, I was a nervous wreck. As I sat awaiting for the instructor to enter the car and evaluate my driving I was shaking uncontrollably until I felt Abby’s hand that was not so little anymore, grasp mine. A feeling of relief overcame me and I realized that no matter what obstacles life throws at us, Abby’s hand will always remain interlocked with mine just like it was that day we spent pacing the kitchen floor as toddlers.