THE LABELS WE CARRY

WHO WE ARE MUSINGS

I often have the best conversations or “hear” the best lectures when I am in the shower. Oh, these things that ramble about in the mind. Usually, the subject is gone by the time I get dressed and do my meditation. This morning, I was thinking about the self and who we are. Whenever a label is put upon us, how does that affect WHO we are at the core?

For instance, being labeled a boy or girl comes with a set of expectations and rules. When I was young, I very much wished I was a boy. Boys got to do cool things. I was never much into dolls, but would much rather be playing outside in the dirt with my brother’s trucks. I remember making roads using a piece of shingle that had fallen off the house. I loved climbing trees and being out in the woods; making forts and playing war or cowboys and Indians. (I grew up in the time of WWII shows like Combat and westerns were popular.) Cooking and cleaning certainly were of no interest. I wanted a boy’s bike because that was about being tough.

Something inside always felt unsettled.

Being labeled a daughter had different rules from being a son. Sons got to do cool things with their dads. Daughters were expected to do home type things with their mothers. And now, considering this further, we didn’t have a conventional family. My mother wasn’t much of a cook or housekeeper, nor did she sew or do other housewife-y things and my brother was never into things my father was like hunting and fishing. But there was still that… society expectation.

Besides the immediate family labels, there are others. I was a niece which came with its own set of rules as to how to act around the aunts and uncles. I was always treated different than my brother, treated less than, from my father’s side of the family and was always told because I wasn’t a son.

Going to school added more labels, not only becoming a student, but names other kids would call me. (Often not nice.) Friend was a tough concept. The couple of early friends I had were never in the same classes. I didn’t seem to fit in with most girls and many of them deemed me “coming from the wrong side of town.”  

Becoming a teenager added its own weight as to who I was “supposed to be.” Again, it was difficult because what most girls my age were into, I didn’t care about.  

What did the label “girlfriend” do to me? More expectations and the giving up more of the self to try to please a boy and make him like me took over rational thought; feeling like I would die if I didn’t see him or talk to him. Within a three short years, I went from girlfriend to wife, mother and working girl. Those responsibilities totally put on the back burner anything else I might have been and even who I truly was on the inside and at that age, I didn’t even know who was that inner me. It was like my life was built on what others wanted of me.

Jobs, too, carry labels and titles. I had a friend who would often exclaim that it was a shame that you are defined by “what you do for a living.”

It was only later when the children were grown and marriages fell apart that I began to search for the real me. It’s an on-going process and is taking many years. Many labels will be with me forever, but some, I have been able to let go and I’ve discovered new ones that make me feel good.

We acquire many labels throughout life and yes, these labels help define who we are. Some labels fit and are good, but there are some that we carry for years that hurt. It’s a process to let go of old labels that do not work for the good of our being. Sometimes there are those around us who insist on keeping us in that old state. Some titles no longer fit.

Can we ever truly know who we are on the inside? What would happen if all those labels were stripped away? Who would we be? What new labels or current labels do we want to use to say who we are and who we want to be?

Tell me.