Ridge and Rust

On Being Made of More Than One Thing

There are muddy boots beneath the chair and a soft dress hanging across its back.

On the table sits a work badge beside a deck of cards, a grocery list, and coffee gone cold for the third time this morning. Someone looking through the window might think several different women live here.

They would not be entirely wrong.

I have tried to make myself easier to explain before.

I have softened the parts that seemed too loud, hidden the ones that felt too strange, and tried to choose between being practical and intuitive, responsible and wild, tender and sharp-tongued.

I have apologized for being “too much” and watered myself down for people who could not handle me at 100 proof.

I have tucked pieces of myself away and asked other parts to be quiet for the comfort of those around me. I have blended and blurred my edges until I became an unrecognizable version of myself—only to look back and realize that somewhere in the process of trying to belong, I had lost sight of who I was.

But a woman is not dishonest simply because she contains more than one truth.

She can be soft and still have sharp edges. She can trust her intuition and still keep both feet planted firmly on the ground. She can hold responsibility in one hand and a little wildness in the other.

Maybe wholeness was never about making every part of yourself match.

Maybe it was about finally letting every part belong—embracing not only the woman you are becoming, but every woman who helped carry you here.

And if someone happens to look through the window, I hope they do not mistake all those different pieces for inconsistency.

I hope they come inside, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and stay long enough to meet more than one side of me.

They are all mine.

They are all true.

And they all belong here.