I used to wonder why people reacted to my family so strangely.
People seemed to be used to twins – and who could deny it? They were everywhere. My family, however, was a rarity. As the only set of triplets in our school, my brothers and I were characterized by our relationship, those eight months of rooming together in Mom's womb. And once people knew the circumstances of my birth, it was hard to impress them in any other way.
My triplethood does flavor my personality. At a young age, Matt, Nick, and I were inseparable: We guided Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels through hulking LEGO towers. We fought over shared toys, televisions, and computers. We embarked on family forays overseas, leaving the mark of the Threesome in Greece, London, and Belgium. We walked with the same gait, talked with the same pitch, and at one time barreled down the path to becoming paper dolls of each other, folded into an envelope labeled “Triplets.”
How could I break away from my proverbial paper bindings? "Triplet" had long been a scarlet letter fashioning my life. Was there any way to cover that mark with something more identifying of me?
At first, my attempts at freedom merely teased the unheeding mark illegibly in pencil. But in my fervor to distinguish myself from my brothers, I fell into the wonder of books and poetry. I found myself tearing through leaves of paper, pursuing a romance with scribbled and typewritten word. Eventually my paper doll sported the decoration of these words, reflecting fragments of stories, essays, and poems in pen, marker, and stone. As we battled through high school, my brothers' paper dolls transformed as well. No longer were we inherently identical to each other. The connecting arms of the paper doll chain frayed, ripped, and eventually were connected only by a single thread.
My brothers and I still eat at the same table, sleep in the same house, share the same car. But no longer are we characterized by our inevitable relation to each other. We are all separate people, driven by our own personal ambitions and inclinations.
Yes, I am a triplet. But I am singular, not plural.