What it’s really like to be a triplet

I was born 26 years ago and, no, I don’t really recall what went down that day. I do know the logistics of it though, as my Mother re-enacts it every year on our birthday. Every July 26th at 8 p.m. she sits at the counter and tells us, in a little too vivid detail, the story of my birth. Well, really, our birth. It was 8:57 pm when I came out first. At 8:58 comes Abby, and with 8:59 comes Melanie. Voila, you’ve got yourself a set of triplet girls. Let our co-dependent, boundary-less, crazy life commence.

All three of us shared a room until we were 18, and we loved it for the most part. Abby on the top bunk, me on the bottom, and Melanie in a single about an arms length away from me. I barely remember leaving the house in our early years. Too much of a hassle. It’s like trying to get a litter of triplet puppies to all do the SAME trick at the SAME time when they are either exhausted or being mischievous, that’s close to impossible.

So we made being at home super fun. We peeled wallpaper off at our own house instead of doing it somewhere else. We poured hot cocoa mix on our own couch instead of someone else’s. We taunted people from our backyard and stoop instead of doing it at the grocery store. When I think back, I truly feel bad for our neighbors as well. How obnoxious is it to have three little kickers running around claiming they saw a black bear in the backyard, or screaming their name every time they came out of the house?

The three of us have no boundaries. Zero. Not in a God I never want them coming over to my houseway, more of a, They are so crazy that I like to sit back and watch them,sort of way. It’s hard for us to imagine that the rest of the world indeed has boundaries. We roam around the house without clothing on because we feel like it.  A few days ago Melanie was walking naked through the living room with a roller suitcase. Abby is constantly trying to read everybody’s’ text messages. If you have something private on your phone, delete it. She will get ahold of it.

We might as well not even have doors in the house because they never get closed. We are very loud. I am loud alone, but when accompanied by the other two yahoos we are easily heard in the middle of an in-action construction site.  Our recent neighbor came running over a while ago because Melanie was yelling about something. He thought something was seriously wrong; he was so worried that he practically knocked the screen door down. In reality, she was just scooping frozen yogurt loudly, and Abby was singing along with the Friends theme song.

Everything annoying that a parent has to deal with is tripled, and it’s all at the same time. We got chicken pox and pink eye together. We were all terrible at class together. We all needed braces at the same time. We all left for college at the same time. We all turned 21 together. We all figured out downtown Madison parking rules together because one of us got towed literally every other day in 2009. We all got uninvited to friends birthday parties at the same time because there wasn’t room for all three of us in the car. We all ate the entire blueberry crumble we were sworn not to eat until we were “allowed.” We all supported Melanie when she literally watched our car get stolen out of the driveway from her window. We all supported Abby when she felt like feeding a returning raccoon every night for a few weeks in the Summer. They both supported me when I ran the car into a cement post in a parking garage.

There is nothing off limits with Abby and Melanie. I don’t question anything when we are in each others’ company, and feel as if we can do anything. Melanie can talk her way out of anything. Abby can run fast. I can book flights on my phone in 30 seconds flat.

Despite all the boundaries we crush, and how c0-dependent and crazy we may seem; we love each other and our people more than anything. I love how unbelievable we are. I love it a lot. Our circus needs a tent and our parents need sympathy and wine. I love them to absolute pieces.Megan Walker is 26 years old, as are her two triplet sisters . She’s from Wisconsin, and currently finishing up a degree in creative writing at UW Milwaukee.  [Image via author]