Labels

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I was so burdened by the labels people put on me that I couldn’t discover who I really was until I shed them all, and everyone who had known me, to find myself. I went off searching for a fresh start, a new chance to be judged without the familiar surroundings or the habits or the thoughts that kept creeping in and clouding my own view of myself.

Leaving the familiar for the unknown stripped me of everything. I was down to my own raw self, and partially living in survival mode because I was traveling solo. Every encounter was a chance to leave a good impression, or whatever impression I wanted. I could be myself in that moment, no former prejudices or heresays weighed against me. When I’m up against people who know me, or claim to know me, there’s already a script written. An act I have to play along with, to keep face. For that good impression, for the people they might talk to, for the circles that surround me in this city that often feels too small. So when I leave, it’s no wonder I feel so free. No one knows me, and I don’t have to care how they perceive me, though often times I do.

I wrote the following on August 28, 2019, a little less than a month before I left for Rome. I later showed it to my best friend one night at the bar to try and explain to her why I couldn’t stay here, and how I feel, why it isn’t right for me right now.

I know how it feels to act. I play the role perfectly. I slide into the persona that the people here have created for me, as easily as I slide into a fresh set of sheets. I know her well, and sometimes when I play her I feel myself morphing back into her. With disgust I crawl out at this first sign of slipping. I take off the mask and wash my face and remind myself who I really am. The me I have created, not the one others have created for me. The me who chooses what she wants, where she wants, and how she wants to live.

It’s even slightly painful to read now, because morphing back into someone I don’t want to be is a painful process I get pulled into.

But I have to also give a rebuttal, a voice to the opposition, because at some point I realized that maybe the person I see myself as is really just another version of who they see me as. Then I understand that maybe the labels I’ve been given weren’t meant to be heavy or even wrong, but I was just too independent to be told who I was, by anyone. Too rebellious to want them, even if they were good or painted a pretty picture of a person.

I know, above all, the comfort of being around people who have known me my whole life, mostly because I don’t have to explain anything to them. Even some people who snuck into my life later, but just seemed to understand me and my nature, what a relief it is to not have to say look, this is who I really am. But they can just see it, and I can see myself more clearly in their eyes. It’s easy for me to tell right away who these people are. Others it feels like I’m constantly fighting a wall, having to explain who I am for them so they see me how I want to be seen.

This leads me to believe that maybe we can choose the labels we want to keep, from these people who are in our lives and know us well. We don’t have to keep the ones that boy in the sixth grade gave us, or the ones our classmates wrote down senior year in our yearbooks. We don’t have to keep any of them we don’t like. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe I’m not innocent. Maybe I prefer to dance until dawn. Maybe I don’t like to observe, but rather be in the heat of the conversation and the passion of life, of living with all my heart. I was just never afforded the opportunities before. Maybe I am things they never imagined I could be, because I hadn’t even imagined them myself.

As I’ve continued I noticed the labels aren’t all wrong, and new ones pop up as time goes on. My aunt called me a world traveler and I thought to myself, that’s the label I’ve always wanted to be identified with. And only I made that happen. I made choices, I bought the plane tickets, and I fought to live how I wanted and now they call me a world traveler. My host dad in Rome called me alta e magra (tall and skinny) at the dinner table one night, and from that day forward that’s how I saw myself. I had been walking and running and eating healthy, and now that was who I was. Whenever a negative thought about my body popped into my head, I just thought alta e magra and kept on living.

When I left the city where people know me, I felt lighter, and I discovered not just who I was but who I wanted to be. Without the judgement or the preconceived notions, I was afforded a moment of clarity on my being, on how I was existing in this world. I met new people, who gave me new labels that I liked because I was showing them exactly who I was. I was existing in my element, the truest and best form of myself, and people could see that. They were attracted to it. I got that fresh start, that new chance to be judged without the familiar surroundings or the habits or the thoughts that had been clouding my own view of myself. Labels were shed and new ones were born, in that place where I found myself. And the only person who will carry them is me, so I must choose wisely.

What labels do you carry?