My big brother is 177 days older than me. That is 5 months and 3 weeks, if you were wondering. Anytime I tell people that the look on their faces is the same… confusion.

     My mother was born with a heart defect. She was advised against getting pregnant for fear it would end her life and/or the life of any child she tried to grow. She and my father decided to adopt. They hopped through all the flaming hoops. While they were waiting, she got pregnant.

     The call finally came. My brother came home at 2 weeks old. 5ish months later Mother and I both survived labor and delivery. That is officially why my brother and I are #basicallytwins. That has caused some interesting life circumstances for us.

     At the beginning he was bigger than me, but eventually we were close enough in size that people always asked if we were twins. As fate would have it, we both had very blonde hair and blue eyes. We totally looked the part. We were cute. And, a lot of the time it was easier to just say yes to the twin question. Our cuteness even got our father out of a speeding ticket. Those were the days of no car seats or seat belts. When the officer got out of his car we were standing in the back seat waving at him. The officer actually gave my father some money and told him to go buy us some ice cream.

     I have no memory of how we knew he was adopted. I don’t remember being told, but we clearly were told because we both have always known.  We even had a story we told anyone who asked about how our parents found him in a basket under a bush and brought him home. When we reached a mischievous age we added to the basket story and told people he was an alien with retractable antennae. We would would speak alien gibberish to each other and laugh.  I am convinced there are some of those, now grown up, neighborhood kids who still believe they met an alien when they were children.

     The fact that my brother was adopted never made any kind of difference for us. He and I were two peas in a pod. Though we weren’t biological twins, we twinned pretty hard. When we were three, Mother and our baby brother survived labor and delivery. We remained really tight. I feel pretty bad for our little brother. We were ruthless in picking on him. When we were all young it was always us against him. Todd and I were a team.

     Things got more interesting in elementary school. You had to be 5 by September to begin school. He turned 5 in May and I turned 5 in November. Instead of waiting to start together, my parents made the decision to have us a grade apart. In third grade his classmates had finally put together that we were the same age and asked why I was a grade below. He told them I failed Kindergarten. Kids are mean, ya’ll. His classmates all decided I was the dumb twin. That was particularly infuriating since I was a straight A student and he wasn’t even close. It never occurred to them that, had I failed Kindergarten, I would have been in there with all of them. It was a small private school!

     Another thing really unfortunate about us being a grade apart was how different we were. Again, it was a small school. We had the same teachers one right after the other.  At the beginning of the school year, Mother would always tell the teacher I was nothing like my brother. I felt like that backfired on me because he was universally adored for his sweet smile and outgoing personality. They all loved him. Then I came along and was very quiet and to myself. I could never live up to who he was. He was the sweet, outgoing one and I was the shy, smart one. I always felt like they preferred him. As an adult, I am sure they saw us an individuals. As a child, though, I was always on the defensive.

     As we grew, we became very different people. Being #basicallytwins lost its allure. I can imagine that may happen with biological twins too. Individuality is important. Teaming up is great fun, but gets old. There is literally nothing at 48 years old that even suggests we could be twins. Those early years sure were fun, though!

     I learned, from being #basicallytwins, how special adoption is. If I could choose my family, I would chose my big brother again and again. I cannot imagine my family without him. The same is true of my children. They are the ones I want. They are the ones dreamed of and waited for. Is life a bit more spicy because of how my family of origin and my current nuclear family were created? Absolutely!  Family is important, though, no matter what kind of circumstances or pure crazy (biological or otherwise) exists within its ranks. When you get right down to it, sharing genes isn’t all that important.