I get asked all the time what is it like being a twin. When people ask me this question maybe they are looking for an answer like, we can read each others mind, and when one of us feels something the other one feels it too. Another thing people say to me is, “Kara is good at it, so you should be too.” That is not always how it goes.

Being a twin comes with many stereotypes. Sure we can read each others minds, but it doesn’t work the way some people think it works. I can tell what Kara is thinking sometimes but that is just because I have known her all of our lives so I know how she would respond to certain things or I can predict what she is going to say. That is what makes it look like we can read each others mind. It works the same way with how I can feel what she feels to a certain point. No, if Kara gets hit in the leg my leg doesn’t randomly start to hurt. When I see her hurt I feel bad for her to a higher extent than someone else would for her. The stereotype that bothers me the most is that people think twins are the same person. False, we are two different people. We have different interests, but we can also share the same interests; just like any other two people could. For example: I play volleyball and Kara runs cross country. We are both good at what we do, but if we switched sports we might not be as good as the other person. We also have different circles of friends. Yes, we can hang out with the same people but we just like some people more than the other twin might. Another thing that is fun about being a twin is playing jokes on people that don’t know us that well. In third grade my aunt tried to get me and Kara to switch classes on April fools day. I’m sure our teachers would not have minded, but we were too chicken to do it at the time. Since then when ever we have a class together we usually switch seats once in a while and the teacher never figures out. I’m sure if we wanted to we could go to each others classes and take a test for each other if we weren’t so confident in that subject, but we haven’t done that. With this people always ask us how they can tell the difference. The only answer I really have to that is, I don’t think we look alike at all. I wake up in the morning and just know I’m Jill. The two people that have never really have mixed us up is Sarah Benjamin and our older sister, Katie. They would be the people to ask if you really wanted to know the differences.

We have all heard the sayings “terrible twins” or “double trouble.” Personally I could agree to a certain point. Kara and I are almost like our own little team. If we have to work on something together or perform a task we could do it better with each other than separately. I think its that way because we are so in sync with each other that we can almost “read each others minds.” I wouldn’t want to deal with two people that are that much in sync. My response to what is it like being a twin is what is it like not being a twin.