Sarah and Sarah!

"No, my step sister name is Sarah too" I used to tell people fighting to hold onto what little identity I had left. We did everything together when we were teenagers.

"And yes we are almost the exact same age." I would say with a laugh.

Growing up together has defined us, helped us turn into the people that we are. Perhaps we were the same person, same name, same age, and even more freaky....We liked the same things. Sometimes I would wonder how this would be possible. Where did I end and she begin?

I think this accounts for my acts of rebelion, a scream for identity, which was taken with me the moment I met Sarah. I was stripped of my own name, she was bigger and stronger less shy then me. I was given the nickname Leonard, Leo, Leonard Ho, Leo Ho and Haras (which is Sarah backwards). It was funny to everyone else but me.

I acted out, I asked myself "What would the other Sarah do?" and do the exact opposite to define myself and ask the question. "Who is Sarah Lyn?" Whenever I thought of Sarah, I would not think of myself, I would think about her. Anybody would agree, this was a problem. Especially since Sarah was almost a Saint, she had the answer to everything and always did the right thing. I saw little choices left and it made me ask "Did Lucifer chooose to be evil or was it merely the only thing left to do?"

I was lost in a rapid river of extreme misconduct. I had totally lost myself in trying to seperate myself and find out what defines me. I eventually hit bottom.

"Please come over," I begged my twin through marriage with tears streaming down my face. "I don't feel so well."

She rushed over to find me in an unspeakable condition. I don't remember a time in my life where I had been in more physical and mental sickness. I had finally given in to my best friend and sister. There was no more running away. She assured me that we would find a way out of this and we did.

Its been 8 years, and I have her to thank for helping me get to where I am and made me realize that its not so bad to share the same name and interests as the girl I spent so much of my developing years with. We still share many of the same manerisms, traits and way of thinking but we also have incredibly obvious differences apparent now to anyone that knows both of us.

What I learned from this? We are all snowflakes falling from the sky, that all came from the same general place, some of us from the same cloud, but this does not make us perfect matches. We all land in a different place. It is impossible to be the same design as another. Sometimes the weather can change our shapes and destinations, just like a rock being eroded over time. We never end up in the same condition as we started despite the fact that we started from the same elements.