Growing up, my sister and I were always incredibly close. In elementary school we had all the same teachers and all the same friends and were practically inseparable. Being so close had both positive and negative effects. As a twin, especially if you're identical, people tend to bunch you together and look at you as one person. It's challenging finding your own place in a pair.

Once middle school came along my sister and I finally had our own unique interests that set us apart from each other. I was in band and she was in drama, which allowed us to make different friends and branch off. Unfortunately, during middle school my sister grew depressed which was a dramatic change, since I had always know her as my three minute younger little sibling who cracked jokes. We grew apart for awhile. She acted angry all the time, because of problems I had no idea were going on.


Three years later, we entered our freshmen year of high school and everything changed. My sister came out as transgender towards the end of the year. It hit me like a brick. Not because she wanted to be a boy, but because she hid it from me for so long and was terrified to tell me.

We are currently in our sophomore year of high school and my BROTHER is 100% happier. HE no longer struggles with depression and is happy on most days. We’ve never been closer and I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful sibling like HIM. At the end of the day, I love him even more and I will never stop loving and supporting him.

I’ll admit it was a struggle accepting everything at first and I still struggle occasionally. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that everything I'm going through can't even be put in comparison to what he's going through. Truly loving someone means accepting them; all of them.

One day, we will grow up and live our
separate lives and maybe only see each other a few times a year. Maybe we'll have family Christmas's together. Maybe we'll talk on the phone everyone Tuesday for an hour. Despite what will happen in our future, we will always be twins and nothing can ever change that.