Watching “Geek Girl” this week on Netflix, I was struck by one bit of dialogue. The lead character is upset because she identifies as a geek, who wants to be a Paleontologist but her newfound modeling career seems at odds with this. She’s having an identity crisis. Her dad points out that she can be both. She can be anything and everything. It’s not an either/or proposition.
I started crying at this point and I’ve been trying to unpack that. I’ve often fallen into black & white thinking. But life exists in the gray area. I did strive for good grades, I won speech contests and did pretty well as a nerdy Catholic school girl but I also played soccer, got muddy and competitive, wore cleats to mass on Sundays when a game followed closely.
As an adult, I work as a bookkeeper but I’m also an artist, actress, playwright and singer. I suffered over this dichotomy and I remember a friend telling me, “you have a left brain too.” Maybe we are meant to be whatever we are and to be that fully. Maybe learning to embrace all parts of ourselves; the perfectionist who also has a checkered past, littered with alcoholic misadventures. The geek who also has a rock 🎸 and roll soul. The tomboy who loves certain frilly clothing. The strait-laced corporate person who followed the Grateful Dead around for years.
We are vast and expansive beings. We were created by a multifaceted infinitely intelligent creator, so why should we be limited in any way? “Let your freak flag fly” means different things to different people but at its core it means you do you. Be the most you that you can be. It’s like that expression “be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
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