I think I’m less of a person and more of a cassette tape. One of those old ones, the kind that you’d play in your dad’s old car while driving through sleepy towns.

I think I have an A side, and a B side. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who I am. You could flip me over and play a new story, which I find kind of dehumanizing and very unpleasant. Like I’m a marionette, or one of those creepy claymation toys. I’ve given out my puppet strings to all these people, and at any time they wish they could tug on a thread and I’d jerk to another side.

Not like I’m bipolar. Or schizophrenic. I just mean that maybe when I was a baby, I was secretly a twin. And maybe I absorbed my twin sister, so that I inherited two souls instead of one. It would explain a lot, like why I love weird food combinations (chocolate with bacon? I invented that!) and why it takes me forever and a half to make a decision.
Because I’m the type of person who loves the city and to slowly burn away on a dry day. I just can’t make up my mind. I love sitting outside during the first snow of the year; I love lying on black concrete and watching it disappear under white. Looking up at the sky and watching countless frost drifting down. I think that’s how I learned how to fall in love.

Because it’s almost surreal to lie on your back, softly looking up into infinity and see white flakes falling down fearlessly, with quiet confidence and steady reassurance. Stable. And the world folds around you and suddenly when your breath gets caught in your throat and your eyelashes grow heavy with snow, and you can almost turn your head to watch the one you love. Because only someone like that deserves to share these moments with you.

But I also love the storm. And I’m captivated by raw force of nature, when lightening breaks foundations and when the sound rocks so strong I swear I can feel every vertebrae untangle. Pure, unadulterated power, you know? It connects me, it really does, and sometimes when I stand on the tips of my toes in the middle of my storm, I feel a spark. It starts somewhere in my chest, like the wind has gripped my lungs. My breathing gets heavy, and the electricity runs up and down my nerves, until my body is on fire but in the most pure of ways. When I wake the next morning I watch broken trees flutter in defeat, power lines crackling, but I’ll never forget the gentle acceptance I received when I stood to hug the rain.

So maybe that’s what I’m all about. Always unsure, always second-guessing myself, constantly pulled in two directions. But I’m ok with that now. I’ve kissed the snow and I’ve embraced the rain, and I don’t think a balance of peace and power is something that can be so easily found. Maybe I’m just lucky to have two parts of me so clearly defined. So maybe I’ve finally outgrown my puppet strings and my cassette tape casing. And now I can just be free, all two of me.