Human beings have always been fascinated by twins. Romulus and Remus, Jacob and Esau, Mary-Kate and Ashley.  As children, many of us imagine having a twin: a permanent playmate, a partner in trouble, someone who'd love us unconditionally. Somewhere out there is someone who is exactly like us! What would it feel like to look into a face exactly like our own?  And what if she suddenly appears in my life? That's essentially what happened to Brooklyn writer Paula Bernstein. I'd known Paula slightly for years; she wrote a lovely essay for Redbook many years ago refuting  the persistent belief that all adoptees want to search for their birth parents. Her adoptive family was her family, she wrote; her adoptive mother was her mother. But then, out of the blue, an adoption agency called her and told her about the identical twin sister she didn't know she had. Her sister, Elyse Schein, wanted to meet her.  I met them for coffee at Cafe Mogador, three years after their first meeting. Now 38, they have different haircuts, have made different choices in hair color1, do their makeup differently. But they clearly look alike, with thick hair, upturned noses. They quickly discovered they had the same childhood habit of sucking their middle fingers, the same adult habit of forgetfully typing their thoughts on an invisible keyboard while thinking. Both edited their high school newspapers and studied film in college. Paula wrote film criticism; Elyse became a filmmaker. They both collected Alice in Wonderland dolls and kept them in the boxes. They're now regulars at Cafe Mogador. The women's journey from strangers to sisters has clearly been rocky. But as they got to know each other, and struggled to piece together their history, their search united them. "For me, the search began when I reached the age when my adoptive mother died," Elyse said. "I realized that my birth mother could be dead. Time was passing. I was ready to solve the mystery that had shadowed my life." Elyse had always felt a part of her was missing. "I'd felt so different from my adoptive family." she said.  Paula was raised in a more typical Jewish intellectual family, and was at first a little threatened by Elyse's appearance in her life. "My first response was both fear and excitement. The moment we met, I felt I was meeting my long-lost best friend. I could tell her anything. And then as that first excitement wore off, I thought, oh my God, I've committed to a long-term relationship with a stranger. I wished we hadn't been separated, but also that I hadn't been contacted. What would it mean to be in each other's lives?" What is the main idea of the passage?
We always hope to have twins for much good. We are often attracted by twins because of the mystery. The long-lost twins, Paula and Elyse, were reunited. Life with twins is always wonderful.