It’s Complicated
When people asked "how are you," we automatically say good. Would life change if we just said: complicated?
We live in a world of contradictions, of opposites, of two things being true at once—and yet we're always pressed to find one answer, one label, one truth that's supposed to cover everything.
Think about how many parts of yourself you shave off in the process of simplification. If you strip a person down far enough to label them as just one thing, are they even human anymore? Or do they become something flatter?
That's the risk: losing ourselves to simplicity.
I've made a new friend. She is a gift from an impromptu dinner party I went to, where I knew no one going into it. It was so beautiful to experience being unknown, something that happens less and less in the familiarity and intertwined web of my college town.
I noticed something beautiful about this dinner. Each girl, myself included, arrived carrying her own confusion, uncertain why we were specifically there, unknown enough that we'd have to figure it out together. I loved watching girlhood emerge through the uncertainty — that shift from who are these people to we are all just girls.
Pretty soon the table was buzzing over friendship, love, self-discovery, and being struck by the rawness and coolness of everyone at the table. It was meant to be us, exactly like this.
And most of all, I was meant to be sat next to my new friend. She is long format in a person. I know, hear me out.
Essentially, she is this rare gem we seem to be losing in the world where she listens with every fiber of her being and gives the floor to your own humanity. She extracts things from me I feel completely safe to let bleed out. She tells me she wants to learn more from my storytelling but I want her to realize she helps the story tell itself.
We had our second night as friends tonight. More like our second lifetime.
We talked about our dreams. She asked me about writing and said how cool is it that this is the time when we can realize our dreams; some kids do, but most as adults—and we're at this point, right now.
She caught me on how in my response of excitement, I also gave her an order in which my dreams were allowed to happen.
We shared the thought about how interesting it is that we place order on how and when things should happen in life, and how much of it may come from the college environment. I asked her, how many more people do you think would realize dreams if our early 20s weren't dedicated to pursuing time-controlling structures. Then, I asked for her unrealized dream.
She told me the most beautiful story about finding fairytale love and then wrapped it with apologizing for not saying that answer in a sentence.
After a whole night of my own tangents, I took the opportunity to spare myself and also share that she is the breath of fresh air we all need. To be able to listen and share with the same depth and avoid one sentence, uncomplicated answers at all costs.
On the same thread, I went to a lecture the other night with none other than Brené Brown herself. She revealed her new book Strong Ground and said something I can't shake:
Hope is not an emotion—it's a strategy. It helps you set a goal, create pathways, and claim a sense of agency.
Maybe that's what we're actually yearning for—to meet it all with an overwhelm of hope. To be pleasantly surprised that we are never in the wrong place, only in the wrong frame: trying to reduce a complex, multifaceted life into one answer.
The truth is, life demands complexity. It demands brave duality. It demands curiosity without bias.
And maybe the most honest thing we can say, when asked how we are, is simply: complicated.