I have a twin and I think I'm the evil one

I saw my doppelganger yesterday.

Not face-to-face. Thank God, for that. I don't think I would have handled myself well. 

No, instead I got to freak out in the privacy of my bedroom with Paul as my unwilling audience.  

I was surfing the web to get my mind something to do (yesterday was a caca day) when I stumbled across her image online. 

Hmm, that's interesting.

She looked a lot like me. And she was a writer too. Then I clicked on her profile, and after reading through who and what she was, lost my goddamn mind. 

"She's me," I told my husband. "She's me, but like a better me."

"What are you talking about?"

Then, I started listing the things we had in common. We had eerily similar backgrounds (same state, same schools, same writing genre) and genetics (same age, same coloring, same hair, same parentage). Even our names were similar, she had mine in hers. 

"Well, that's quite a coincidence," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean she's better than you."

"Yes, she is. Look at her. She's prettier, thinner, taller, smarter, and more accomplished." I collapsed face first into the bed. "Shew mew, bah mew do pain oh. "

"What? I can't hear you."

I lifted my head. "I said she's me but Me 2.0. Ohmigod, why am I even trying when she's already beaten me to the punch?"

"Calm down. No one has done anything to you." He rubbed the small of my back. "You're playing the compare game and you know that never ends well."

I continued lamenting, ignoring him. "I might as well pack up and call it a life." I looked down at my phone and scanned her profile. "I'll bet she had a better life too. With parents who like actually liked her and I'll bet she was the perfect everything. Perfect daughter, perfect student, perfect friend. Perfect life."

"You don't know that. She could be a bitch, and no one has a perfect life."

"No, I read some of her reader comments and I hear she's a sweetheart." I wailed back into the pillow. I turned my head to talk."I'll bet if you met her, you'd like her better. I'll bet if all my friends saw us side by side, they'd like her better." And without saying it, I knew she was the kind of daughter my mother always wanted.

"Okay, you're being crazy now. I know why you're acting like this." Earlier that day, I had gotten a pink slip call from my job. "It's been a sucky day. You're displacing big time. Go paint and get this energy out of you."

He was right. Paul is always annoyingly right. I spent the rest of the night painting to help get out of that funk. 

So, yeah, last night was not fun. 

I thought I'd moved past that whole compare thing, but it hit me again this morning. 

It's just that we were soooo similar. Like all the things that I thought made me me? She had them, too. 

C'mon,that's gonna screw with your mind a little, right? It can't just be me, right? 

I have to fix this. This isn't good. I don't like feeling like this. I thought I had gotten so much better.

I have decided to list 10 things that I have that isn't similar to her. This can't be stuff I own, it has to be stuff I am. Like remove everything you own...who are you underneath it all?

Here goes:

1. Even without meeting her, I can already guarantee that I'm funnier. Being funny is inversely (or directly?) related to how much pain you've endured and I know my past is pretty fucking fucked up. So yay, (dry laugh*) a point for my deeply dysfunctional history creating such a strong funny bone.

2. I don't know if she has siblings, but I know I'm one hella good sister. I'm loyal and generous. My brothers know I'd be there for them no matter what. Think mama bear mixed with a hungry lioness. With rabies. I'm in that category of protective. 

3. Yeah, we're both creative, but we have our own different styles. Mine is pretty unique. But so is hers. I should learn to appreciate hers while appreciating mine to the same degree. In fact, I should be glad she exists. There aren't enough women like us writing. Hell, she's helping pave the way for me. I should be praising her work and be proud of her. 

4. Yup, she's prettier and taller and thinner...but that doesn't mean I ain't adorable. She can do beautiful, but can she do adorable like me? 

Damn, I'm comparing again. 

What I mean to say is...I like my body. I like my face. I like my curves. I like my hair. I like my smile. I like how short I am. I like my flat feet. I like thick arms. I like my soft belly. I like this form I'm living in. Despite everything it's endured, it's strong. It's okay that it's not tall and thin. It's healthy and can still move. That's really all that matters. 

5. She isn't smart the way I am smart. I mean, yeah, this chick is very smart but I'm heavy into science, and what she's into is not science-based. 

I doubt that she could go to the morgue, open up a cadaver, and name as many bones, muscles, and organs as I could. Forget anatomy, maybe she doesn't even like biology. I love biology. I love growing plants from seed and figuring out the anatomy of every living being. Oh! and I love fungus. There's nothing better than poking some slime mold with a stick, amIrite?  

Basically,I don't think she would think the way I do. Would she appreciate a dung beetle's work ethic like me? I don't think so. I mean, few people think about shit like that and I do, like all the time. 

6. I don't know her heart, but I know mine. I'm big-hearted; I love quick, forgive easy. I try to be kind every day. I want a heart free of anything rotten, so I work on being a better soul. 

Once I got robbed of my bike (the only method of transpo I had during college), and I said, "They must have needed it more than me."  I let go of my anger and wished blessings on whoever took my bike. Someone who did it was either desperate or lost in their way through life. Either way, I shouldn't be mad. 

The cop said he had never heard someone think that way before. 

7 . I really like my energy. I don't really slow down for anything. My speed limit through life isn't normal. I really like that. I live twice the amount of life that one average person does in one lifetime. 

8. I organize when I'm freaking out. I don't know if she does that. She could be a complete slob, who knows? But I know no one can organize a closet, a cabinet under the bathroom sink, or a life like I can. I know the inventory of my house, even down to how much I paid for the item in question. That's crazy cool.

9. My resilience. I am the weed that continues to thrive despite it all. I cannot wait to finish editing this book so I can close the door to the past one final time, but man, writing it all down has been walking-on-broken-glass painful. At times, I've openly wept writing this hell of a story down. But the one thing that stands out is...well, I'm still here. I'm the one sitting and typing it all down. 

10. This. I love this about me. That I admit my weaknesses and try to learn from them and become better. I am doing this because I know that she and I will meet face-to-face one day. And when that day comes, I don't want to be jealous or envious of her. I want to genuinely be happy to meet her. I hope she wants to be my friend and to do that, I gotta work on this shit. I want to be the kind of friend that is true and supportive of her. She's an amazing person, I'd be lucky to be in her company. 

I just have a few things I gotta work on about me first.