Twins Do Everything Together

I have an identical twin sister. People often ask if we ever experienced sympathy pain or anything like that, but I’ve had something a bit more literal.

Despite being identical physically, we had completely different personalities that growing up, most people could tell us apart by our clothing (I was more feminine), or that my glasses were purple and my sister’s were blue, or how my sister was often getting injured. My sister was outgoing and very sporty and would often make impulsive decisions that ended with her getting hurt somehow.

Despite being very different people, we’ve always been very close. We’d often joke around with each other and with others about classic twin tropes, including sympathy – the idea that twins can viscerally feel each other’s emotions and pain.

This was April in 4th grade (for non-Americans, we had just had our 10th birthday). I was home reading on the couch when my mom got a call from the soccer coach. My sister had had an accident during practice – a clean, minor fracture through her left tibia. She was in a lot of pain. I remember hugging her and comforting her a lot the next day, and we joked a little bit about how I could almost feel the pain too.

Then, two days later, I was, rather stupidly, walking downstairs at the same time as taking my glasses off to rub my eyes. I predictably tripped, fell, and tumbled. I don’t remember the number of steps I fell, but it was enough that I had serious fractures. I broke several bones in my right leg, the same bone in my left leg as my sister, as well as having a minor fracture in my right wrist. My leg took five months to recover.

Before that week, neither of us had ever had a serious injury. Then, within 48 hours, both of us had. We joke about it still, that she got injured throughout her childhood, but I saved it all up for that one “special” day.