I would like to fit neatly into a box. I try. I take quizzes and questionnaires. BuzzFeed says I’m a peanut butter cookie and chill as heck, so I guess that means something. When people ask, I say that I am an INFJ (introvert, intuitive, feeling, judging), and even though my answer results have changed a few times, I prefer to just choose one and define myself by the answer. Why? Because fitting in a box is simple. Because I want to know who I am. Because I am searching for meaning and significance. Aren’t we all?

I would like to define myself by my personality. I’m either an “extrovert” or an “introvert.” I am a “people person” or a “book person.” I’d “prefer to stay home than go out” or “I party all day, every day.” But the reality is that my answer to stay in or go out changes daily, or even hourly. Sometimes I get energy while being around people; other times I hit a social wall. I always need time to recharge, but often I find aloneness lonely. I love people and I hate people. Goodness, could I just make up my mind?

I would like to define myself by my political affiliation. I want to fit neatly into a party’s platform, agreeing with one candidate’s many positions. But I pick and choose and can find fault with any and all stances. I waffle between my concern for national security and my belief in the sanctity of all lives. I take the stance of capitalism’s effective system and economic reality, and then I wish that large corporations could be regulated and wealth could be distributed. I both want small government and want the government to get involved.

My fashion changes on the daily. Sometimes I delight in wearing business casual or dressing up in a nice dress and heels. Then other days I vary between preppy chic, urban cool or the pregnant mother look (without the pregnancy, just for clarification). Ice cream? Mint chocolate chip is my default, strawberry when I am feeling classic and something peanut-buttery or with raw dough when I need an adventure. I love soft ballads as much as I love hard rap. I don’t have a “type” of guy. And I couldn’t choose between coffee or tea, because really both fill my soul.

A friend said it best. I am a “system of binary oppositions” (anthropology-speak). Yet what bothers me the most is that I want to define my emotions. My heart aches for people; however, many days I want to live as a hermit on an organic farm. I dream big, though I often live small. I crave genuineness, yet I won’t let myself be vulnerable. I put on a tough exterior and want to be seen as strong, but I yearn for others to know my pain and my weakness. If I am sad, doesn’t that mean I can’t be happy too?

I don’t think I am alone here in my quest for wholeness. By all of the quizzes and classifications on the Internet, I assume most people want to put themselves in a box. Yet a box is confining—there is no room to stretch and grow.

I am learning to embrace the facets of others and myself. If I could look at a person and define them, then what would be the sense in getting to know someone better? I think that our complexities make us whole.

You can be both a people person and a book person, a party person and a movie person, a person who needs alone time and social time (*gasp*). You can be a thinking human being, who chooses from issues and candidates without mindless following. You can have two favorite ice cream flavors… or more.

It is OK to love deeply and yet need to withdraw from the world to take a breath. You don’t need to define yourself by strength or gentleness—you can have both. Happiness and sadness are allowed to exist within the same space, even the same moment. Because that is life. That is what it means to be human.

A system of binary oppositions is still a system.