Blog as Journal: DUALISM

Today I looked the word 'dualism' up in the dictionary. It's definition is largely theoretical, as in:

the doctrine that there are two independent divine beings or eternal principles, one good and the other evil.

 but basically it means to be split in two. It is

the state of being dual or consisting of two parts 

Now before you blow this post off as a [boring] vocabulary lesson may I explain that this is exactly how I've been feeling lately. Not the 'eternal existence of good and evil stuff', the 'division into two equal parts' stuff.

I am at conflict with myself and it is exhausting.

I've been in Toronto for about 20 months now, and lately I've been feeling like the city has let me down - or rather that I haven't stepped up to embrace the city and in doing so have let myself down. I moved here with visions of change and self-improvement and now realize that the only lesson I've learned since I got here is that changing one's location does not change one's situation. I feel like I am the exact same person I was when I came to Toronto - except with a considerably smaller bank account. The city has yet to swallow me whole but I fear that it has frightened me into stagnant submission. These feelings coupled with an extraordinarily difficult six months for several members of my family back in Halifax has lead to a true, desperate feeling of homesickness like I have never felt before in my life.

And so I struggle.

The part of me that knows that changing my address is a foolish way to change my life wrestles with the part that yearns for the simplicity of home.

The part of me that wants to focus on myself and my future argues with the part that wants to be there for the people I care about who may need help now.

Stay - Go

Fight - Retreat

Struggle - Surrender

Me - Them

Forwards - Backwards

Toronto - Halifax

All of these opposing words, and notions, and ideals, and expectations vacillate inside my head, heart and gut until I am confused, anxious, and lying awake at one o'clock in the morning on a Sunday night.

I don't write this to complain or cause alarm, or really to expect an answer. I just know that I can't be the only person split in two (theoretically, theologically, or hell, even psychologically) and maybe if I send these words out into the Clouds - for according to Google, that's where all of our information goes these days - the dual parts of me will be calmed for the evening so that I can get some rest.

dictionary source