My phone rings every morning at around 8am. It’s my twin sister, Emma, and we speak - her still bundled within the warmth of an electric blanket, me walking in loops around my local park - for an hour or so before work, galvanising each other’s day with soothing advice or giggled words of encouragement. Until restrictions were relaxed to allow travelling outside your local area, this was the extent of our sisterly interaction.
Over the past few weeks we’ve gone from meeting on a bench and holding hands through disposable gloves (I kid you not) to enjoying a teeth-chatteringly cold barbecue over the long weekend. We haven’t hugged since December - which was technically against the rules, but was also her wedding day - and haven’t spent any time indoors together since September. Had I known at the onset of the first lockdown that this would be the dystopian reality of our relationship, I think my heart would have been very nearly broken.
And unsurprisingly, I’m not alone in being cut off from my twin (we weren't able to bubble together as neither of us lives alone). According to the BBC, a questionnaire of more than 3,800 twins surveyed in the UK found that only 5.5% were living together at the start of the pandemic. And anecdotally at least, their experiences have been similar to ours.
Had I known at the onset of the first lockdown that this would be the dystopian reality of our relationship, I think my heart would have been very nearly broken
Leonie Roderick, a 29 year-old journalist living in London, has been separated from her twin, Sarah, since managing to see each other last summer when restrictions were briefly lifted. As Sarah lives in the Netherlands, they’re used to not seeing each other for extended periods of time, but what the pandemic has added is a layer of uncertainty.
‘The most difficult thing has been the uncertainty, and simply not knowing when we'd be able to see each other again,’ says Leonie, who wants to spend their 30th together, but, again, has no idea if that’s going to be a possibility. Christmas also came as a blow. ‘While we are used to not always spending our birthdays together, last year was the first Christmas that we weren't together. FaceTiming my mum and seeing my sisters (she also has an older sister) there still left me feeling rather emotional,’ she says.
But what the last year has cemented is a renewed commitment to speaking to one another more regularly. ‘I think we've both become more conscious that we have to put in the effort to maintain a close relationship. Since the pandemic, we message each other most days and call at least once a week.’
Hearing Leonie’s story makes me think my twin and I are the lucky ones. Compared to being separated by a border, being stuck in two corners of one city seems like child’s play. That doesn’t, however, mean that our ‘lockdown journey’ has been a smooth one. In fact, like most people’s, it’s been a series of unfortunate events.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, the day we were supposed to see each other to exchange presents in the park, she tested positive for Covid, spending the next 10 days in self-isolation with her husband dutifully bringing her packet after packet of instant noodles. And because of the rapidly-changing rules at the tail-end of last year when we were going in and out of tiers, I couldn’t go with her to a single wedding dress fitting.
Writing this story, I’ve thought about whether all siblings feel this way, regardless of whether they’re twins or not. I think some do and some don’t, which probably tallies with how much they saw each other before bubbles and lockdowns came along.
Because of the rapidly-changing rules at the tail-end of last year when we were going in and out of tiers, I couldn’t go with her to a single wedding dress fitting
But maybe it’s taught you how to stand on your own two feet, I hear you saying? Sorry to disappoint, but if anything, it’s the opposite. I’m even more reliant on her advice as - with not much to do and no one to see until recently, not to mention more anxiety than usual considering we’re all trapped in the echo chamber of the same four walls day in, day out - I’ve got used to her always been on the other end of the phone.
Again, I think this might be how many twins feel. On a particularly frosty walk this year, we passed a man who called out, ‘Are you twins?’ He, as it turns out, was a triplet and we proceeded to have a good old natter about how often we all spoke. But that’s the thing about being separated and surviving (to put it dramatically). The reunion, when it comes, promises to be even sweeter.
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