Tag: Self-acceptance

Labels: To Defy or Define

Labels are all fine and dandy, but just as long as they’re just that – a first glimpse at a person. A guiding post of sorts. A little name tag that you stick on your shirt while walking into a roomful of strangers.

Labels are comforting, labels are familiar. They are convenient to define ourselves in a word. A snapshot of our identities. A quick and easy sign board to walk around the world with – so that we don’t have to stop and explain to people who we really are, by delving into a lifetime’s worth of experiences and histories. The backstories that we don’t have time to get into. The many many chapters that don’t always make logical sense. The changing world views. It’s simpler, easier to use labels – hello, I’m Pooja. I’m Indian. I’m a grad student, and all that it entails. I’m a Potterhead. An introvert. A bookworm, a nerd, a feminist. An obsessive planner. A city girl through-and-through. A vegetarian. A keyboard player. A summer girl. A dog person.

But each of these labels are all-or-nothing labels. If I’m not A, I must be Z. If I’m a dog person, I must dislike cats. If I’m a feminist, I must hate chivalry. If I love summer, I must be a winter-hater.

However, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters, as Sirius Black so wisely says. I’m not one or the other. And neither are you. It’s so easy, so reassuring to put us in a little box – it feels comfortable and needs no further qualifiers, both for ourselves and for others. In the absence of labels, it takes time and patience to explain where we’re coming from, neither of which we necessarily have at any given moment.

Labels are all fine and dandy, but just as long as they’re just that – a first glimpse at a person. A guiding post of sorts. A little name tag that you stick on your shirt while walking into a roomful of strangers.

What happens when we give labels too much weight? When we rely on our labels just a little too much, and accidentally end up boxing ourselves in? I’m Indian, so must I staunchly keep my heritage alive, and never leave myself open to the ‘corrupting influences’ of the Western world? I’m an introvert, so should I just opt out of all group activities and parties? What if we end up boxing ourselves into a label – and even more terrifyingly: what happens when the label stops fitting, and we start feeling lost, feeling like an impostor?

Because these labels, you see, have been my identity all along. And if I’m not them anymore, what am I? I’m not A, but I’m not Z either. In a world of extremes, that’s pretty uncertain ground. What am I? Who am I? Where’s my one-word summary? What’s the excerpt on the back cover of my storybook? The short sweet concise description of who I am?

There are two ways of looking at this situation. Either I feel lost and bewildered, because I’m a weird hybrid who isn’t native to either place. I can flail about and try to pull myself towards one extreme. One clear identity. And I can constantly reject or dismiss hints of what doesn’t fit my unambiguous narrative.

Or: I could defy those pre-existing labels and define my own. Build my own middle ground. Stick on a new name tag for my current identity, with a bunch of empty name tags to leave room to evolve. I can be the person I am right now, even if it doesn’t totally make sense. My labels can be ‘95% vegetarian’ – to represent that I don’t seek out meat, but will eat chicken if all the veg options are tofu-based (ugh). An introvert, but one who won’t shut up when having a prolonged conversation with someone she’s feeling a connection to. An Indian who loves NYC and the freedom it grants her. A Potterhead who re-reads the seven books every year, but pretends that the Cursed Child never happened. A dog person who doesn’t mind the occasional snuggly kitten. A city girl who likes to lie down in grassy fields and count the stars. A summer -lovin’ sort who goes starry-eyed at the first glimpse of snow. A girly girl who loves romance and all things purple, but couldn’t care less about clothes shopping. I’m not a morning person, not a night owl – just a sleep person. I’m not Team Edward or Team Jacob – I’m Team WhyBella. A bookworm who occasionally gets sucked into the black hole that is Netflix, even though she has – gasp! – three unread books!

So there you go – that’s who I really am. I’m the middle ground, my own unique middle ground. I’m neither extreme. Absolute labels are not enough to define me. Or you. We are too human, too complex for labels. We cannot be summarized in a single word. We are so much more than a clean concise excerpt at the back of our books. We are colorful and messy and constantly evolving. We define our labels – they don’t define us!

In Defense of Stories Untold

But ever so often, consciously or otherwise, we curate and edit our stories – and even if we call ourselves an open book, there are certain chapters we don’t read out loud, certain stories we don’t exchange while sitting around bonfires on beaches at night – because they don’t have conventionally acceptable happy endings, or because they paint us in an unflattering light, instead of as the valiant and righteous protagonists we’d like to be.

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We are all storytellers. We express ourselves through Instagram pictures, overly long Facebook posts, public blogs, or even just dramatic retellings at extra long lunch breaks with our friends. We love being narrators, in varying degrees of spotlight, and there’s something incredibly gratifying to have our audience connect with our narratives.

But ever so often, consciously or otherwise, we curate and edit our stories – and even if we call ourselves an open book, there are certain chapters we don’t read out loud, certain stories we don’t exchange while sitting around bonfires on beaches at night – because they don’t have conventionally acceptable happy endings, or because they paint us in an unflattering light, instead of as the valiant and righteous protagonists we’d like to be. So we bury these stories deep, never to see the light of day – and if we do decide to share them, we prefer to add filters to our photos, don masks for our one-man shows, and narrate our stories from a different angle. Maybe we’re afraid of being judged too harshly. Maybe the statute of limitations isn’t up yet. Maybe we are still in denial, and haven’t yet accepted this chapter. Maybe we look back and wonder what we were thinking in the first place, or if we were thinking at all. And so these stories, these untold stories, are kept under wraps because they spoil the overall narrative, you see? They don’t fit the image we’ve worked so hard to project. These stories are the chips in our armor, the unnecessary glimpses of flawed and painfully real humanity. It’s vulnerability laid out bare in front of the world, and we don’t want anyone to see it, because we ourselves struggle to reconcile with it. So we tell ourselves that it’s just a fluke, a one-off, and that the true narrative is still unblemished.

But don’t these stories deserve to be told? Aren’t these tales important? Don’t these chapters offer insights into self and values, knee-jerk reactions and instincts, as much as, if not more than the stories widely published? In fact, more than the stories themselves, the reasons why we choose to keep them under wraps is a deeply insightful, if difficult question, which provides a clear path towards exploring our own implicit biases and judgments. What do we feel, and why are we feeling this way? What guilt, shame, pain would we rather not deal with, and pretend doesn’t exist? While this ruminating may not change our public narrative dramatically, it does help the storyteller understand motives and reasoning of their primary protagonist – themselves.

We all love the image of ourselves we have in our heads – the perfect, flawless, whip-smart version of us who never messes up. Who never makes mistakes. Who knows exactly what to say at the right time. Who is kind and thoughtful, but also not a pushover. Who has no hair out of place, no wrinkles in their perfectly ironed clothes, no chinks in their armor. Who’s always more talented, more unstoppable, simply more than who we are in reality.

But you know what? That isn’t who you really are. You are not perfect – instead, you are real. You are real, and flawed, and just figuring out those flaws, and working on what you think warrants change makes you gloriously human. It’s hard, so very hard to remember that vulnerability is not weakness. Your messy emotions, your honest-to-goodness pain, your rawness, your awkwardness – may not be perfect, but they don’t have to be. You don’t have to be. All you have to be is your unique self, flaws and all. So let’s remove those filters. Let’s throw off those masks. Let’s read out those stories, loud and proud. Here’s to being fearless, instead of flawless!

A memory for my Pensieve

20160730_215920I am a Ravenclaw. My favorite subject is Charms, and I am particularly adept at producing a corporeal Patronus (it’s a Golden, er, silver Retriever). Potions is a close second; my current project is to brew a perfect batch of Felix Felicis over the next six months. I own a snowy owl as well as a purple Pygmy Puff.

I am, most assuredly, a Potterhead. I’ve loved the Wizarding World since I was 11, and J.K. Rowling and her incredibly detailed universe captured my imagination like nothing else. However, in spite of all the times I tried Levitating my shuttlecock instead of hitting it with my badminton racket, in spite of all the scrapbooks and zillions of sketches of Harry I made on the last page of every notebook, in spite of reading the books over and over till I could recite the chapters off my head – I have, for the most part, been a Potterhead in isolation.

Growing up, I have been laughed at, mocked, and gently rebuked for this obsession of mine. I’ve been reminded, multiple times, that this is all just a distraction, and I need to focus on reality. I lived in a world without midnight release parties, without crowds around me clamoring for new books the way I was – I grew up feeling different, feeling like I wasn’t understood – pretty much like every Muggle-born witch before she gets her Hogwarts letter. I grew up with my magic intact, but just better-concealed. Over the years, I have cultivated a casual, ‘oh yeah, I guess I like Harry Potter’ attitude, even though I know that deep down in my heart, it lives on in all its obsessive, many-splendored glory. In true Ginny fashion, I gave other stories a chance, became more comfortable in my skin, more myself – and yet, never truly gave up on Harry.

Yesterday evening, on the eve of Harry and Rowling’s birthday, I attended one of the many many midnight release parties for Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. And it was a revelation. People of all ages were running across the bookstore on scavenger hunts to find Horcruxes and Fantastic Beasts, making glittery wands for themselves, and playing across a giant chessboard. We all tried on the Sorting Hat, we decorated and left out socks for the House Elves (Hermione would be proud!), guessed the number of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans packed into the Triwizard Cup, and with the whole place decorated with House banners, owls and Dementors, Hedwig’s theme playing in the background – it was completely magical. I couldn’t help squealing for joy when I popped into the girls’ bathroom and found a troll. Such attention to detail! There was a Muggle wall, where everyone had put up lightning-bolt-shaped, funny, poignant, heart-felt messages about what Harry Potter has meant to them. This was it, in this moment in time… I found my tribe, my people. Yes, we were all crazy, but in the best possible way. And isn’t it absolutely incredible that one woman can write a story of such epic proportion that she inspires millions of people to dress up in robes, sport scars and flourish wands – one woman, causing such multi-generational mass hysteria! If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. Being there, celebrating Rowling and her world, surrounded by people who were unapologetically reveling in their mutual wizardry – it felt like coming home. Finally being wholly accepted, and celebrated for who I was , what I loved… after all these years, I’d finally made it to Hogwarts. All was well.