...Twin

September 2015

Rick and I are twins.  We are exactly alike.  Forget the details that he’s male and I’m female.  Forget that our birthdays are two days apart – plus a few years.  Forget we have absolutely no matching DNA  (at least that we know of).  Forget that he looks like a model, and I look like, well, a mother of three.  Aside from these trivial little points, Rick and I are, indeed, twins.

As it happens, we’re both Geminis.  While I don’t typically buy into the whole astrology thing, it was one of those “duh” moments a few years back when we figured out that we were both born under the sign of the Twins.  But it’s not the zodiac that connects us; that’s just a coincidence.  No, what makes us twins even more than sharing many of the Gemini traits such as being charming, upbeat and clever, Rick and I are both Type A personalities… hard-core, Type A personalities. 

A short digression to make sure we’re on the same page about the definition of Type A: impatient, time-conscious, highly competitive, multi-tasking workaholics with perfectionist tendencies.   We’re not talking Homer Simpson or Dilbert here.  (Creative license allows me to omit listing the not-so-flattering aspects such as insecurity about status, open hostility and an inclination to aggression.)

While life has taught us both to manage these tendencies, thus avoiding heart attacks, premature gray hair, wrinkles (did you know Geminis tend to be youthful and attractive?), lawsuits and divorces, we are, respectively, textbook cases.  It’s comforting to have this kind of “twin” in your life.  We’re able to support the other’s outlook or opinion in the face of well, the kinder, gentler world.  I speak on our spouses’ behalf when I say that they’re relieved that their loved one has this kind of “small group therapy,” freeing them, if only briefly, from our pinpointed, fact-based, emotionally charged views of whatever topic has lit our fire. 

When our daughters were in kindergarten, they were tested for the Gifted and Talented program.  A few weeks later, both families got the “close, but no cigar” letter, explaining the difference between “gifted” and “high achievers.”   Regardless of the letter’s intended reassurances, Rick and I suffered for days in mutual silence.  Independently we wondered how it was possible that my child  – a child who could read before she got to kinder; a child who knew her address and phone number by the time she was 3 (okay, his did; mine didn’t – it was annoying); a child who could hold meaningful conversations about how toilets worked, or why chicken tenders and chicken nuggets were the same but different – wasn’t accepted into the program.  What would become of her?  How would she get accepted into the best university?  What – horrors! – did this say about us as parents, as producers of her DNA?  

It wasn’t pretty.   But it did result in Rick’s and my first “counseling” session.  He showed up on my doorstep one morning wanting to talk.  When he shared with me the topic, I felt myself building some of that hostility that I took “creative license” on above.  How could I talk about this failure on my part?  How could I fake being happy that perhaps his daughter made it when mine didn’t?   But it didn’t take long before we were wah, wah, wahing over our mutual disappointment.   We bonded, firmly united in our belief that there were fatal flaws in the test, the process, and yes, even the teacher. 

Several years and similar events later, Rick became our daughters’ soccer coach.  The first season they lost the first four games.  Needless to say, highly competitive, win-win-win Type Aers don’t handle losses well.  But both Rick and I kept it together for the sake of our girls, grinding our teeth while reciting the league motto of “child first, sport second.”  The next four games ended in ties.  Better, and yet for us – as individuals, certainly not as parents – we shared that bitter disappointment that it wasn’t a win.   And then it happened.  Our girls won their next game.  And the next, and the next, and the next.  4-4-4 – not bad for a fledgling team.

The following year the girls had a winning season and made it to the tournament.  The semi-finals game went to a shoot-out.  Our shoot-out girls were taking the field: Rick’s daughter, my daughter and another girl with a powerful leg – all logical choices from a closet “sport first, child second” coach and his twin.  

But then Rick -- my twin, my co-dependent, my therapy partner -- betrayed me in a way that would have sent me into labor even if I hadn’t been 38 weeks pregnant.   As our girls were defending first, our goalie took position.  I realized, in the slow motion of an accident, that the goalie was my daughter.  This was not, in my very confident, borderline aggressive opinion, a logical choice at all.  No, you see, the first game my daughter ever played (the 4-4-4 year), Rick put her in at goalie.  I kept praying, “please don’t score on her, please don’t score on her, please don’t score…”   They scored.  My daughter was crushed, holding the loss as “her loss.”  It took several days and lots of ice cream to help her get over it.  She avoided the goalie jersey for the rest of the year and nearly all of the next year, until Rick betrayed me – us -- and stuck it on her in the tournament.

“Are you crazy?  Have you lost your mind?  I’m ‘divorcing’ you from twin-dome, you nutcase!”  These were all the things going through my prenatal mind as I watched the girls line up, hoping I wouldn’t start having contractions, throw up or pass out.   Twin? Ha!  Alien is more like it.  

As if it weren’t bad enough, we were playing my daughter’s dear, dear friend – they’re born a week to the day apart and share the same first name -- and she was third in line to kick against us.

First kick - them: my daughter saves it!    

First kick – us: GOAL!

Second kick – them: goal.  Crap.

Second kick – us: over the post.  Double crap.  Tied 1-1.

Third kick – them (my daughter’s friend): a can’t-stand-the-pressure fluff kick into my daughter’s hands for the save!

Third kick – us (my daughter, ironically): GOAL! 

Amid the celebratory shrieking, I found my daughter, both of us in joyful tears about what she’d just accomplished – for herself and for her team.  I waddle over to Rick, still outraged in spite of the successful outcome.  That Type A open hostility was just below the surface as I half-hugged him and asked him if was crazy, trying to send me into labor or just being mean? 

Being my friend – my twin and not 8½ months pregnant – he got where I was coming from.  But he told me he was doing it to win, that he could count on her.   She was the one girl on the team who wasn’t afraid of the ball.  And she was one of only a few girls who wanted to win so badly they could taste it (versus turning cartwheels or doing other cheerleading moves).  Wonder where she got that from?  

The girls went on to lose in the finals, but redeemed themselves this past year, winning their last tournament before scattering to other 10-year old interests.  Rick was right that day.  His knowledge of the facts, the situation and my daughter were superior to my mother-hen instincts.  He’d studied his team, considered the options and took the calculated risk.  He put my daughter in because he loved her, not in spite of the fact.  And he put her in as goalie to win.  Had I known what he knew, I’d have done the same thing.  Child first, sport second – but let’s be honest, a really, really close second. 

That shoot-out was a life lesson for my daughter that we come back to time and again.   She is, undeniably, a Type A personality, putting aside her fear in order to compete, in order to win.  She gets mad when they lose – not in a poor sportsmanship kind of way – but in a “play to win” way that puts an ache in your heart and a fire in your gut to improve your game.  In her I see the positive aspects of Type Aers – the desire to be ever better, impatience with mediocrity, and a never-give-up attitude.  

Rick will probably always be one of my favorite people.  The Gemini in him makes him easy to be around, fun to talk with and amusing to joust with intellectually.   His Type A personality makes it easy for me to relate to him and fun to compete with.  He recently made the mistake of introducing me to Pathwords on FaceBook.  1370 right here with Rick a distant 1240.   I know it’s killing him.

Rick and I are twins.  But more importantly, Rick and I are friends.