unity by binary

Have you ever felt yourself splinter?

I don't mean just scattered bits of you, trying to figure out how to accomplish too many tasks or juggle too many social engagements or which pair of earrings to wear this morning.

I mean your literal, actual soul-- your identity-- just splitting apart like the ends of my hair that need a trim?

You know, my hair is a great metaphor. Because those strands of hair that are splitting-- the origin is one strand that separate into two and three and maybe more little bits. So it's all really the same hair, just different sides of it.

You know?

I've been splintered.

Not exactly in a bad way, before you jump to conclusions.

It's actually allowing me to inspect each of the little bits and figure out where they split off from the singular me, the united me, the United States of Me, and why they split, and how exactly they split off from USM (United States of Me).

And how it's possible that I see and feel two sides of every individual thing in every single moment.

You know in the last season of LOST when there were two different versions of the same story? There was the linear continuation of the same story we had been watching (and scratching our heads about but never stopped watching because Ben Linus was just so freaking good and we just had to see if it could actually come full circle ((which it didn't really, let's be honest with ourselves)). At the same time there was the second new story that told us about what would have happened if the crash never happened-- if the LOST never happened.

[Truthfully I take umbrage with Sideways Land of LOST because I just didn't really like the story and the finale was not the enlightening experience for me that it seemed to be for everyone else (except for Sun and Jin obviously). That said, it's created a perfect illustration for me.]

I feel like I'm living like that final season of LOST. I have the linear me that's marching down the same, albeit unpredictable, unified USM path I've been on my whole life. I grew up, graduated from BYU, got married, have done a lot acting, had some jobs, am getting divorced, will do something else, etc.

And there's the Sideways Land me (SLM), which has been snapped back 5 years. I've just finished college and have the whole world at my feet. I have no money but 1000 prospects in every possible area of my life. My name is mine again. My contact lens prescription is the same. A surprising number of My People are still single, and even if they're not I've seen more of them than I have in years-- I mean, it's uncanny and wonderful. I never changed the URL to this blog. The only things that have changed (I mean, not really, but you know what I mean) is the presence of my three cats (much to the surprise of my dog-loving heart) and my thyroid condition (hyper-turned-hypo, making me a hyper-hypo).

These two sides of me aren't mutually exclusive. It's the same me starring in both worlds, on separate planes but always in the exact same moment. In one single minute I can be grieving and grasping at straws to heal, and giggling at a thoughtful message that brightens my vision of the future.

I feel invincible and glorious while I'm fallible and dull.

Lovely and interesting and ugly and tedious.

Unmotivated and ambitious.

Loved and unloved.

Overwhelmed and free.

Sexy and frumpy.

A world of binaries that very few people seem to understand.

What people don't see is that I mourn by embracing opportunity. I am busting out of my skin as I sit still. My soul sings in the silence, or sometimes my throat sings so I can be silent.

I laugh and cry all at once, one feeding off the other in a grand cycle that's occasionally confusing but always informative.

It's weird.

But it doesn't feel weird. It feels natural.

Weird and natural. And weird.

All splintered and skipping around trying to grasp at reality and possibility-- constant dichotomy that's thrilling (terrifying), difficult to explain (easy to feel), resentful (grateful), hopeful ( sense of impending doom...).

And strangely, it's all driven by love.

So unexpectedly, I am driven by love.

I have never loved more-- and that's no dichotomy.

In each win, as in each loss, a little crack is chiseled into my heart that's not breaking at all but expanding it into this giant, enormous heart that just wants to hug everyone.

I want to spend time with everyone, and talk to everyone, and really know everyone, and help everyone, and support everyone, and give everyone gifts, and bake everyone pies, and spend a warm evening with everyone piled on blankets in a park under the stars holding hands.

The splinters are magnifying my capacity to love.

And so maybe it's not like my hair at all-- not split up sides of the original USM.

Maybe it's the other way around.

Maybe the splinters are the original parts, emerging from all around and swirling together to make this whole, loving, loveable person.

The me I've always been all at once-- that I've just never given myself the chance to feel and see and be it all at once before.

 How fascinating.

And not at all boring.