The story of my life.... I am constantly hiding in my twin brother’s shadow. At our school, football is a really big thing. In fact, the whole sport dictates who is “cool” and who is “uncool” simply by whether or not they play football. If you do, you have hundreds of friends, people who talk to you, respect you, make you feel like you belong to something, some group. My brother, a long time before highschool, decided to start playing football instead of playing soccer. At this point, our social lives were separated. I went my own way, and he went his. He became “popular” and I remained that dweeby little kid with the big glasses that could do your homework if you asked really really nicely. I joined and stayed in band. My time as a jr. high and higher elementary student were.... I don’t want to talk about that. Just know that they weren’t peaches and cream.
To combat my depression from said years and to keep back the loneliness, I began to write. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote until I could no longer write. I almost finished a novel my 7th grade year. I emphasized my creative talents to escape from the madness of “the real world.” I worked hard on my studies, read everything I could get my hands on, read and reread magazine articles, picked up useless knowledge books, solved mystery novels before I got to the last 5 chapters, and so on and so forth. I guess you’d call it a safety mechanism, but I just used it to cope. Looking back, I can basically accredit my love of reading, and any creative talent that I have to this time period.
And so, all my life, I have been at the edge of popularity, kind of looking over the fence at my neighbor’s yard. As I have grown older, I have hatched out of my proverbial shell, made some friends that were also “unpopular”, and even tried to mix with some of the “popular” people. A question I get a lot is, “Are you C’s brother?” at which I sigh, and reply with a hesitant “Yes.” I’ve been “C’s brother” and “little C”, “C’s Twin” all my life.
The past couple of months have been going well in the respect that I’m not recognized by most people as C’s brother. I’m Alex. But tonight brought me crashing back to reality.
I was worried about C. He was out at football practice, but he wasn’t home and practice was supposed to be over 45 minutes ago. I get a call from him soon enough. “Hey Alex, do my feeding chores. I’m going over to Brittany Boch’s for dinner with the football guys.” This might not sound like much to most people, but it was like a slap to the face for me.
Brittany Boch is a supposed “good” friend of mine. We talk often, and while most people call her Botch and make fun of her, I have never said anything condescending towards her because she is so self-conscious of it. I often help her with her Honors College English IV because she comes up and asks. I help her with her Pre-Cal, and she’s just someone nice to talk to. So when she invites C and the guys who play football to her house for dinner, it’s rather like a large kick to the stomach.
C and I are 1 of 3 sets of twins in our class. You can’t think of one of us without thinking about the other. As I think about it, the more it makes sense. You see, I’m not a football player, so it would make sense not to invite me over for dinner, even though I’m at every football game marching with the band.
I must sound pretty rude and self-absorbed, asking myself “Why didn’t she invite me? I’m just as good a person to invite as the football guys.” But the truth remains that I’ve always dried my tears on my brother’s coat-tails, or as the story goes, his football-jersey . So, it always seems that this is the way it is.
I’m the one that cries.
I’m the one that can paint, and draw, and sing.
I’m the one who has a high GPA.
I’m the one who doesn’t play football.
I’m the one who is overshadowed by his younger twin brother.
I’m the one that plays in the band.
I’m the one that can’t connect to a group of people that I thought were in some way “just like me”
I’m the one who thought that those people would believe that I was “just like them”
I’m the one who can’t see his worth.
I’m the one who dries his tears on his brothers football jersey.
I am me.
Adieu, Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.
Beebes.