My twin brother left town this morning.

Technically, it was this morning, but it felt like a very late night just after midnight as my brother, Matt, and his wife, Jo, loaded the final hangers and pillows and boxes of books into their taxicab-yellow Penske moving truck, and pulled the clanging metal door shut. We had all had a party together for the hours before their midnight departure, ostensibly celebrating this new chapter in their lives, I suppose...but my older brother Brian said it well when he described "a pall over the whole thing." It was a celebration of new things, I guess...but for me, it felt a bit like a funeral.

I've never lived apart from Matt, really. We grew up in the same house, as you might imagine, and shared a bedroom for the bulk of our youth. We went to college together and lived next door from each other. We got ourselves married, and moved down the street from each other. Hell, we even shared the same room in-utero, and that was close quarters. We played together, we sledded together, we swam together, we joined rival ten-speed biking gangs in our neighborhood together, we fought each other, and we bled sometimes. I hated him when I was still in the stage where I could hate someone for stealing my dessert or not handing over the TV remote, and I loved him when I was still in the stage where you believed you didn't have a choice. He was my rival, my playmate, my bully, my confidant, my equal, my conscience, and the only one of us brave enough to tell Mom off.

Matt and I have always highlighted the enormity of the differences between us. He is a sports fanatic, an athlete, a social butterfly, and a raucous and loud voice that carries in any crowd and that sneers in the face of disagreement. I am an artist-type, a sedentary, an extrovert who fears the disappointment of others, and a peacemaker. But jesus, we're so alike sometimes. We did life together in a way that, unless you're a twin yourself, I don't think you can understand. In some ways, we polarized in order to live our lives as two halves of the same exprience, I think...we polarized to differentiate ourselves, and we polarized so that we could experience the completeness of life more fully together.

As kids, we were often asked if he could feel the same things I feel, and if we had any kind of special "twin power" that would allow us to sense what was going on to the other twin at any given time. I always laughed and said no. Today, I wonder more.

If this reads like a eulogy, it's because it is. Matt is far from dead...he is beginning the next step of a journey that will undoubtedly prove magnificent, frightening, resonant and powerful. He and Jo are finally going to be in a town big enough to accomodate their talents and their training. He will practice law, and he will excel. She will write and publish, and she will excel. They deserve this success...and I would never wish for them to stay here. But the fact remains, he's further away than he's ever been, and for the first time in my life, I can't just go see him. This is new, and this is hard.

Matt and I, for all these years being so close to each other in young adulthood, never spent a lot of time together. Truth is...I never felt like we had to. My love for my twin brother is as saturating, profound, and as unconditional as I will ever know. He was a constant for me...I quietly trusted because I knew he was there. He was always there.

Matt, if you're reading this...I miss you already. I cried last night, I cried this morning, and I'm crying now. I am so happy for you and Jo, and I have no doubts that this is the best move for you...but I don't want you to be gone. You are the only twin brother I will ever have, and I can't help but feel like a part of me is in DC now.

I love you deeply, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

-Justin