Being Unique

Lately I feel like a broken record. “No two people are exactly alike.”

It’s an old saying. I’ve heard it since grade school, at least, which was a number of years ago. I know it’s true, from personal experience.

As our one time blind high school counselor pointed out, my sister and I walk and talk alike. Anyone looking at us can see we look the same. A fact I’m reminded of whenever I glance in a mirror. Physically, in more ways than not, we are identical.

Yet we’re not.

I’m not talking about the length of our hair, which has switched several times over the years, or the style of our clothes and glasses. I’m not even talking about our family situations, which are clearly polar opposites right now. I’m talking about who we are.

My clearly and completely right handed sister has little or no sense of humor and a hot temper. She always did well in English, however struggled with Math and don’t ask her about Biology (she never got mitosis and meiosis). She also aspired to be a lawyer. I think she’s persuasive enough she could have too.

I’m her mirror, therefore, I’m a lefty although raised in righty world I’m now ambidextrous. (Hence the mirror exercise she mentioned where our fingers touched, her right, and my left.) I always managed English and did fine in Math. I found Biology fairly easy. (Mitosis and meiosis, yeah I got it the first time.) Lawyer? Are you kidding? It requires talking, to lots of people. Never happening. I also have a sense of humor. As for the temper, well I have one. Considering how infrequently I explode, when I do, watch out!

We do both write, however even in that we’re different, our word choices, sentence lengths, and structure, all distinct. We both write romance with some similarities, yet she doesn’t do fantasy or sci-fi (unless you count the one story, but it’s more romance). She does poems, something I’ve never really mastered. Her writing’s been published before.

Some of our leisure time activities might be the same, or at least similar, though others are not.

Her late husband did Rendezvous reenacting, and she joined him, including hand beading his hat band for him. She made period clothes for them too. You’d never catch me camping, let alone doing so like the early frontiersmen, and trappers did in the American West. Considering her issues with math, I don’t think you’d find her doing Sudoku, something I enjoy.

Another old saying is “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

With people this is especially true.

They may look, talk, and walk alike, but under all of it, they’re not the same person. Every individual is unique and deserves to be recognized and accepted for their individuality. And perhaps that’s why I sound like a broken record, because I can remember being Jacki’s little sister’s twin.

Stand up. Be counted. Be unique. Be yourself. Because everybody’s different and this world would be a boring place if we weren’t.