Cleave

The word “cleave” fascinates me. It can mean to split apart or to cling tightly together. The same word describes both separation and attachment. For a long time, that contradiction felt uncomfortably familiar.

Growing up, I was both deeply rooted in my family and always on the edge of leaving it. I spent much of my childhood helping care for my grandfather, learning how to tube-feed him, reposition him, and stay calm when things went wrong. Responsibility anchored me early. At the same time, I was constantly pulled outward, toward mathematics, toward music, toward ideas that lived far beyond our small family. I was attached and detached at once, cleaving to home while also cleaving away from it.

I feel the same tension when I do mathematics. When I encounter a theorem, part of me wants to break it apart, to reduce it to axioms, to question every assumption. Yet another part of me wants to hold the structure together, to see how the pieces interlock into something elegant and whole. Like cleave, I am always splitting and binding, dismantling ideas in order to understand them more deeply.

Even my work in teaching reflects this contronym. As an SAT teacher, I must push students beyond their comfort zones, challenging their habits and sometimes their confidence. But I also must be a steady presence, someone they can rely on. To help someone grow, I have to both disrupt and support, to cleave in both directions.

I used to think this tension meant I was inconsistent. Now I see it as a source of strength. Like a contronym, I don’t have to choose between opposites. I can belong deeply while still reaching outward. I can question everything while still caring deeply about the answers. In the space between holding on and letting go, I’ve found the freedom to become myself.

Words like "Left" (remaining or departed), "Dust" (to add or to remove), and "Fast" (to move quickly or hold firmly) carry this same kind of duality.  Contronyms hold opposing meaning in perfect tension and in that tension, meaning becomes richer, not weaker.