Anything But a Label
We like labels. They tell us exactly what something is or isn't. They categorize, organize and set into place what we yearn to define.
We are born into this process. We are given a name, and from there everything else follows. We lean slightly one way towards what is so often called "The Right Brain" (Which is a complete myth of a concept) and we are labeled 'Artistic/Creative'. We lean in the opposite way and suddenly we are all "Logic".
These labels that the our systems, cultures, and norms set up as a whole, only teach over time limitations instead of freedoms.
Because when we are told something enough, we will believe it.
In my High School Grade 11 year I was picking out courses with my guidance counsellor and expressed a desire to take the next Biology class the following year. I enjoyed the one I had taken, and wanted to take another one. I liked the material and it interested me.
The response?
"You can't take that. You are not good at it. It won't look good on a transcript."
That was that, I was dismissed as not good at Biology therefor I had no business being in a class that would teach me about it.
Implied Label: Not smart in the sciences.
I accepted it. I never took a science course again.
Labels.
"Why don't you ever use a nickname for me? You've never given me a pet name!" I whined at the man I had married years before and known for even longer still.
"I don't know...it's not easy for me. You have always been 'Amy' to me." He spoke into the quiet of our darkened bedroom.
"Just Amy." I huffed holding a cat tail with my left hand and feeling the rumble of her purr through it.
"Not, just. Amy is enough, you are enough as you are. You don't need any other way to describe you, because Amy says it all."
The cat purred louder and I let go of her tail turning towards him.
"Amy?" I questioned not fully grasping how my three letter name could say anything more than a popular name trend.
"Amy." He pulled me in and I heard his breathing get heavier.
He wasn't trying to label me.
Why was I?
Because I wanted a label.
"Tell me what I am." I had so often asked my family, friends, teachers, online tests, bosses, colleagues ...
I am this.
I am that.
We need to be anything but these labels.
We need to flourish without a definition.
Because we are enough.
We were made to be exactly who we are. Contradictions and Consistencies all wrapped up into one person.