AND Not OR

The code to the beyond.

Most of life is taught as a choice:
This or that.
Right or wrong.
Your pain or theirs.
Your truth or the world’s.

So we split.
We argue.
We defend a single version of reality as if it's all we have.

But the truth is — it’s never been either/or.
It’s always been both.

You can be hurt and still love.
You can forgive and protect your space.
You can need support and stand in strength.
You can grieve what someone did and wish they’d come back whole.

We are built for both.

The mind prefers simplicity.
But the heart was made for contradiction.

We feel misunderstood when others flatten us into one thing.
And at some point, it doesn’t even matter anymore whether it's in one direction or the other.

Good or bad.
Right or wrong.
Broken or healed.
Strong or sensitive.

The truth? You are all of it.

You are the quiet and the storm.
The yes and the no.
The one who held on too long and the one who knew better.
You are the story and the silence.

We live in a world that demands conclusions.
It rewards certainty.
But some of us… we don’t fit that frame.

We feel too much.
We see too far.
We listen while others rush to speak.

And so we’re called complicated.
Or unclear.
Or even wrong.

You’re not.

You weren’t made for the courtroom version of life with sides and verdicts and someone always losing.

You were made for and.

Some people will ask you to be only the part of yourself they can handle.
Not because they’re bad but because they never left room for contradiction.
They needed to be right.
Or safe.
Or first.

But love, real love, isn’t afraid of both.

The sky holds sun and storm.
The ocean gives life and takes it.
Love holds freedom and responsibility.

So do you.

Some people won’t make space for both.
They will stand in “their light” and won’t leave room for your full self to even breathe.

That’s not your fault.
It is your call.
to choose what you continue,
and what you let go.

Because to make space for others,
you must first reclaim it for yourself.

You are not wrong to feel what you feel and think what you think.
You are right and safe to hold it.

For some this isn’t just a philosophy.
It’s survival code.
A path to a view that is whole,
without having to fit either side.

~

Not this or that.
Not yours or mine.
Not love or truth.

This and that.
You and me.
Love and truth.

AND — not OR.