As I'd Like It

I'd like to believe I'm like Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It. I'd like to believe I can be conservative when others are liberal and liberal when others are conservative, staying true to myself all the way. I'd like to think that when I'm with the Jacqueses of the world, I can boldly speak up for beauty, love, happiness, and positivity, but while with the Orlandos, I am sensible, concrete, blunt, and stoic. Rosalind is the perfect character- she knows when love poetry is bad and is still able to be flattered. She can at one moment say "Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.", then hide in the bushes, faint with love, to observe the man she loves.

I hope I am like Rosalind. I hope I can be a Calvinist Democrat or a charismatic Methodist. I don't want to miss one side of truth because it doesn't match another. I want to know that love is frail and stronger than steel. Controversy and paradox are in everything, and I see no reason to pick a side. If I feel both, I am both. I can have a nose ring and work in an office. I can have a tattoo and go to church. If I needed to hide in the forest, I think I'd dress as Ganymede to experience life. That's what I want to do- experience life. In its truest sense. I want to live like Rosalind. I'd like to believe I've already started to.