Do You Know Your Neighbor? Lauren Spivey

 

               My neighbor, hmm let’s see. Well I’ve known her my whole life so I would say I know her fairly well. Emily Spivey, the 5’5” girl who looks exactly like me.  If you would have asked me before the year started what I knew about her, I would say everything. Even though we’ve known each other since birth I thought I knew everything about her but due to sitting right next to her this year I still notice things that I hadn’t noticed before.  Whether it be her constant need to have everyone like her or her extreme optimism. The part of having everyone like her is a blessing and a curse. She’s a very lovable person but she can have her insecure moments where she thinks everyone notices something bad about her. I will sometimes tell her that maybe her makeup is a bit messed up or her hair needs to be fixed and she instantly becomes so insecure about herself like everyone else has already noticed it and I think that might be her only flaw, that she cares about everyone else’s opinions too much but honestly if that’s her one flaw then I think she’s doing a great job. Also the thing that bugs me is her optimism. It’s always a great thing when someone tries to stay positive all the time but I don’t know how she does it. It annoys me how happy she can be sometimes because I’ve never been like that before, I’m always seen as the negative twin, the one who is always pissed off at the world and yes, that is true but it’s not all the time. Whenever I see Emily angry or sad, it’s weird to me. I usually am at a loss for words, I have no clue what to do, do I hug her or would she think that’s weird or do I just leave her to deal with it herself? Because it’s just unexpected, it’s so rare that it’s a foreign situation to me.

                I can tend to get jealous of her though. She’s awesome and I sometimes see that maybe if I was more like her, people would like me like they do her. I have noticed that maybe the reason we are different is so that we don’t get forgotten. It may sound weird but if you think about it why would someone take the time to know two of the same person? We’re basically treated like two versions of the same person. We scientifically are the same person but due to the things we’ve been through the friends we’ve made and just life in general, we’re different. I always wonder if there was ever one event that made me more secluded or made me artistic or if there has been one that made her realize life is great and should be thoroughly enjoyed.  Maybe if we had the same teachers growing up and we did the exact same things, and got yelled at the same way, then maybe we would be exact clones of one another.

People probably think that we are the closest of friends and hug and say we love each other all the time but we honestly don’t. I think it’s a great thing though that we don’t because friends fight and I think if you don’t fight or disagree on anything then you don’t know each other well enough because there are no two people in the world who are exactly alike no matter how hard you try. I can’t remember the last time I hugged her which is kind of awful but that’s just us, we don’t hug each other I guess because we just see each other so much that it would be weird.  It’s so strange to think about. I don’t see her as a twin, I see her as a sister or like my closest friend. Sometimes I don’t like it. We’re constantly compared and it’s kind of the same thing when parents compare an older brother and younger sister, they are two completely different people with different strengths and weaknesses it’s not fair to me.

Honestly though, I hope she doesn’t read this because then she would know that I actually do like her. She’s awesome and I couldn’t ask for a better twin to share life with. I love her to death and I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s my best friend. J