Dealing with Duality

My life has always been a constant state of duality. Its quite a complicated place of existence, because very often I want two opposing things at once: the NYC career girl and the hippie college professor in some bare-foot beach town; the thoughtful novelist and the feisty director of Business Development; the silly, smiley me that will make up silly songs because its fun and the abrupt, no-none-sense type that just wants to get things done; a stable and safe environment and also a varied and unpredictable time of transit; a commitment from a man and a time to be truly alone with myself with no other commitments. I often struggle with having time and energy to deal with both sides of myself. For when two ideas are polar-opposites, how can they co-habitate?

I don’t want to always be choosing one side of me over another. I want to always be able to be honest with everyone, including myself. I want to be me and feel the world can accept all of that. And most importantly, I want the people I chose to have in my life be able to love me for the many sides of me… all of me. I don’t want to feel that I am always hiding a part of me from the ones I claim to love most.

In recent situations with friends and loved ones, I feel I am getting push back on the side of me that is a little more cut-and-dry, the side that is about dealing in honesty and reality, the side that is a little more difficult to accept, and love.

I am struggling to come to terms on how I feel about this. For if someone only accepts part of me, then ultimately they are not accepting me, right? If they only want to know half of me, then they really don’t want to know me as I am more than half a person, right? And if they are only listening to half of what I have to say, then they are not really listening are they? Can someone like that be a friend and someone I trust?

Its interesting, as the more I travel and move about, the more I am able to accept all of me. Getting away has allowed me to come to terms with myself, the reality of me, and be honest with myself more than I ever have before. Demanding that sort of honesty from myself, makes it easier to demand that from others too. And for once in my life, I am just unwilling to accept less than the best from anyone I choose to spend time with – especially when that person is me.