Somewhere Between Black and White

Some people speak in bold type.
Their thoughts are full-sized headlines.
And then there’s me, quietly italicized, mostly brackets and a footnote or two.

Growing up, I learned early on that not every opinion needs an audience.
Especially not if the audience is… let’s say, emotionally enthusiastic.
My mother didn’t believe in nuance. She believed in being right.
Which, to be fair, is one way to live.
But it made expressing a different view feel like lighting a match near a gas stove.

My father? The calm one. The silent type. Smart, but soft-spoken, sometimes to a fault.
He passed away when I was thirteen, and with him went the middle ground.
Suddenly, it was just me, my mother, and a house full of black-and-white thinking.
Grey was for weaklings. Opinions were declarations. Disagreeing meant defiance.

And because I was a teenager with an above-average eye roll and below-average impulse control, I leaned in.
Hard.
I could be cutting. Loud. A walking contradiction with very strong opinions about things I barely understood.
And if I hurt someone? I’d probably say they were too sensitive.
(It’s not a proud era, but it happened.)

But here’s what growing up taught me,
You don’t always have to win the argument to be right.
And being right doesn’t mean being loud.
Some things are better left unsaid, or said later, or said softer.
And sometimes, just sometimes, you’re not actually right.
(Yeah, that one hurt.)

Nuance became my favorite shade of everything.
The space between “yes” and “no” where curiosity lives.
The difference between reacting and responding.
The sacred pause before blurting out “you always” or “you never”, when in truth, it’s usually just “sometimes,” and “it hurt.”

I still misstep. Especially when I care too much.
Especially in relationships, where my silence can feel safer than honesty.
I’ll hold back an opinion out of fear, fear that I’ll scare someone off, that they’ll walk away if I dare to disagree.
Old ghosts. Old wiring. Still lingering.

And here’s the strange part:
Back then, I often spoke out not because I believed something so strongly;
but because I was afraid.
Afraid of not being heard.
Afraid of what would happen if I wasn’t loud.

So I mimicked the certainty I saw in others, even when it didn’t fit me.
I performed confidence instead of seeking understanding.
I became a version of myself I wouldn’t have felt safe around and if someone had treated me the way I treated them, I’d have folded into silence.
Which begs the question:
Why live out loud in a tone you’d hide from?

These days, I crave dialogue.
Real conversation.
Not point-scoring, not echo chambers, just two people willing to stay curious.
But that requires two things many people aren’t ready to give:
A steady voice and a soft ego.

So I choose my hills.
I pause more.
I listen better.

Because the goal isn’t to be right.
The goal is to be real.
And real is rarely black or white.