When I was younger, I lived in the binaries. I moved from joy to despair, losing myself in every emotion completely and with abandon. I remember this one episode, I must have been about fifteen and had a falling out with my good friends – they were a newlywed couple, slightly older than me. Or, maybe they told me they had marital issues – they ended up divorcing eventually. I must add here that both me and my friends were evangelicals, so marital issues leading to a divorce did seem like the end of the world. And after this falling out I decided I would never be happy again. Never smile, never laugh and avoid talking as much as possible. I was so devastated, even worse, I was angry either the world for continuing as usual, blissfully unaware of my devastation. I think I lasted half a day, but it was an intense half a day.

Now all I see are spectrums and shades of gray. I had a huge argument with a friend yesterday over Trump election. He was angry with me for being upset about the result, while one or another made no difference in the genocide. I wanted to tell him to f*** off, but instead I said I am sorry for triggering you and I love you. And he said I love you too. Today I got an email from someone I have only met twice. Someone wonderful and young and doing amazing work in the world, who shared that they had an amazing week working with environmental justice activists in Mexico. What I realised is I like living in the world full of spectrums and shades. I like that we can cry and be angry and celebrate and despair and fuck and break things and laugh till our bellies hurt and all of this at the same time. I’ll take this world over binaries. But I have conditions: I will not pretend that I am well when I’m not, I will not hide my feelings from people I love, i will not show them to people I don’t trust, I will accept whatever people I love want to show me and set my boundaries with others and I will not be afraid to tell people I love them. Because love and unconditional acceptance is the most revolutionary, incendiary and counter cultural thing right now.