Duality

Written by Maya Graham

Lately I’ve been thinking about this idea of duality. About how we often try to make everything and everyone fit into a box, into a label, tied up neatly with a little bow. There’s a gray area to life and living in this space is real, it’s common. I love the idea that you can be two (or more!) things at once, interwoven and working together. I went out with my friends last Thursday and acted like the 21 year old girl I am, took pictures with my digital camera, and everything that encompasses going to bars in your twenties. The next day I woke up for my 9 am senior sem class and had a rich and engaging discussion for four hours of our class time. I love that I can do both. I can be both dumb and young, while also being intelligent and hardworking. I can be basic and boring, while also being unique and radical. There’s parts and pieces of me that fit into different spaces- we as humans aren’t meant to fit into one conversation, one group, one place forever. The world isn’t supposed to be understood in binary categories, with inferior and superior, good and bad, positive and negative. We grow and evolve as we get older, and we keep the pieces of ourselves we’re proud of. I’ve been feeling like I have to be serious and academic all the time, always working hard and thinking ahead to prepare myself for my future. But I can take the breaks I need and enjoy the time of life I’m in. I can be highly educated, and yet still have learning to do. There’s always room for growth. I think I can be both judgy and kind. I can be organized and a planner, and yet still have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I can be a person with chronic illness, and yet still have my moments of exuberant energy. I can have moments of internalized misogyny, and still be a feminist. I can be privileged in some ways, and face real struggle in others. We’re all not just one thing. I’m (working on) letting go of these ideas that tell me I have to be one or the other, that I have to have it all figured out right now. College and your twenties is for growing and figuring out who you are. These pieces of you will move and change over time, and you’ll grow as you have different experiences and become the version of yourself you want to be. You don’t have to be one thing, and you don’t have to have it all figured out right now!