Thing 1 and Thing 2

Meeting the twins is one of my earliest memories. I must have been five or six. It was at the Christmas Party my parents threw each year at our ranch style home in the Santa Clara Valley as the first layer of silicon was covering its orchards.

The twins were fantastic. They were happy, smiling, and full of energy. They had curly heads of hair cropped to the length of their jawbones and they looked absolutely identical. I had never seen twins before and I was mesmerized. They were cute. Like, super attractive cute.

As a child with excessive amounts of energy myself, these two were tailor made for me. I couldn't keep up. We'd run from one length of the house to the other. Again and again. Weaving between the cocktail- and hors d'oeuvres-carrying adults at dangerous speeds.

They were like Thing 1 and Thing 2. Ripping around the house together, we ended up under the telephone desk which was like a little fort. Suddenly we were in another world. Our own, beautiful place away from it all. Here I was with these two smiling, mischievous, lawbreaking beings of energy. I think I was in love.

Interestingly enough, despite their identical appearance, it quickly became obvious they were not, as appearances might suggest, the same person. They were quite different. Martha was a little cooler, a little bit in the background, a bit wiser, I suppose. She was the older one. By two minutes. AnnaMarie was warm, bright-eyed, and...closer. She just felt close. I was enthralled by her. Even at that young age, as I look back, I realize she was my first crush.

The last time I saw her we were in high school. Martha ran into me by a bonfire at at a beach party, and went off to retrieve AnnaMarie, who was clearly on drugs. Unlike the other world under the telephone desk, hers was now miles away from the one I was standing in. She was overwhelmed. She couldn't quite fathom that I was there. We hadn't seen each other since we were little kids, and here she was, likely in a hallucinatory state, and she couldn't reconcile the disconnect between the innocent rambunctiousness of our early childhoods with this alcohol-fueled fest on a remote northern California beach. What were the chances our lives would intersect again here?

Through family circles, I occasionally got news and updates on her. Yes, she graduated high school. No, she struggled in college. She disappeared for a while. Her parents don't know where she is. No, she's back. Enrolled in junior college. She's artistic. No, she's gone again. Yes, her parents found her. They bought her a car. She's living in it. No, she sold the car. They bought her a phone. At least they can reach her now. No, she traded it for drugs.

This went on for years. 

I learned this weekend that she committed suicide last week.

When I got the news, I hesitate to admit, I wasn’t sad or surprised. I, understood. Life is heavy. Life is hard. Life as an adult in the 2020s is a far cry from being a child in the 1970s. Things are scary. Climate change. Nazis. A shrinking middle class. Atrociously expensive real estate. I understand, sadly, the ultimate option she chose. God save me.