It's a Small, Small World

My sister, her husband and two precious children are at Walt Disney World in Orlando for a few days. This family loves to have fun, and Sean and I always feel a bit stuffy around them. They are involved in youth ministry so they just have that "young" vibe.

Anyway, I got a call from Heather on Sunday. They were in Mickey's Toontown Fair Land and I could hear the fun in the background. She barely said "hello" when she burst into a question: "Do you know someone named Darlene _ _ _ _?"

Apparently Heather and her family were standing on line for The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm (how's that for a name of a roller coaster?) when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, "You have got to be Christy's sister!"

Turns out my friend Darlene from Atlanta was in Orlando with her family and happened to be standing right by my sister. How's that for a small world?

Even though Heather and I are twins I've never really thought we looked that much alike. But lately more and more folks have been commenting on our facial similarities. I actually had someone ask me, after looking at a picture of Heather and her husband who my first husband was.

There are definite advantages to being twins. We were the only set of twins in our circle of friends in high school -- multiple births just weren't as common then as they seem to be today -- so we were something of a rarity. (I was going to say "oddity" but felt that opened the door way to wide for jokes.) Most of the folks we knew in high school will remember at least one of us.

Another advantage is we are at the same stage of life at the same time. We're going through the same stuff at the same time, although I am a bit ahead, having gotten married first and had children first. That is only proper since I am older. Let me tell you, those six minutes count. Of course, those six minutes bite me in the butt on our birthday when Heather claims to be a year younger for a full six minutes. I just love that phone call each April.

Those six minutes counted when we got our driver's licenses, too. We were standing on line to take the test and they decided to close the line after me. My Dad told them we were both going to take the test or neither of us would so they agreed to close the line after Heather. But I got my license first and I got to drive the first half of the way home. I can still vividly recall the place Dad made me pull that green and brown Oldsmobile station wagon over so Heather could drive the rest of the way home.

(I also recall Dad yelling at me to "GET OVER!!" when he was teaching me to drive because I had a very bad habit of driving way too close to the passenger side of the street. Better to hit a mailbox than an oncoming car was my reasoning. My Dad, the passenger, did not agree.)

And we've had a few of those freaky "twin" moments when we'll call each other and both be fixing the same thing for dinner, or have done the exact same thing that day, or actually be trying to call one when the other calls. Sometimes even we feel a little weird about those things.

Of course being a twin was not always rosy. My grandmother decided it was too hard to tell us apart so one time when I was visiting her she cut my hair into a Dorothy Hamill bob. (Christy = Cut, Heather = Hair.) I was very young, six or seven, and am convinced that haircut stunted my hair growth, thus causing me years of anguish because I've had to deal with short, stubby hair ever since. I may still be suffering a bit from it.

But on days like Sunday when a friend of mine sees my twin sister and they get to make a connection -- that's when being a twin is just plain fun. It may not make up for the hair cut, but it certainly goes a long way to making it better.