Secret Twins
I have a "secret twin". Ok, never mind the fact that I have twin nieces (right) who I think are the greatest thing ever! (They're even cuter than little puppies!) I love them and all of you know that already. But I do have my own twin - quite a few of them actually - though we're not triples.

One of my twins is a girlfriend of mine I met during my days working at Borders in Beachwood. She was leaving for the Peace Corps in a couple of months and we found, besides Peace Corps (I would leave a year later) we had so much in common. We both loved Bell Hooks, literature in general, poetry, people, Africa (yes, the whole continent), music, music, music, dancing, outdoors, and many millions of other small things. She was African-American and from Seattle, I was Midwestern and white but we were secret twins and we introduced ourselves to other people as "this is my secret twin". We shared many experiences even if we didn't share them together.

My other twin comes in the form of my younger brother, whose birthday is 10 months and 28 days after mine. You call that "Irish Twins", but we're not Irish.

My last twin come in the way of a friend, who I met last year at a leadership workshop in Cleveland, who turned out to be my secret twin - or a partner in this cosmic journey called life. The conversation of discovery went something like this:

Me: Did you say you were from Beckley - West (by God) Virginia?

Twin: Yes.

Me: Me too - I was born there.

Twin: Me too.

Me: I was born in December.

Twin: So was I!

Me: In 19--

Twin: Me too!

Me: (trying to top it) In a blizzard!

Twin: So was I!

By the end of this rapid exchange we found out that we were both born in the same town, in the same year, on the same day, in the same small hospital with the same blizzard swirling around us - though I'm the older twin - even if by a couple of hours.

Aren't twins fun? (Aren't my nieces cute?!)

So Happy Birthday Cosmic Twin! Happy Birthday Irish Twin and Happy Birthday to my Secret Twin.