Dear Labels,
We need to talk. It’s not me, it’s you. Although for years, you made me think I was the one with the problem. But you created it. Manipulated it. Controlled it. Relished in it. You made me believe that I must label myself in order to fit in with society. Put me into a box, place me on a shelf and label me. But the labels never quite fit.
Often, I lay awake at night and wonder how many boxes you stack away day after day mislabeled. Unaware of the games you play in their minds. Labels, you know what I mean.
I am a girl, but that in no way means I act ‘girly’. I would wear jeans over skirts any day. Yet for years, the very idea of not wearing a dress or a skirt made me think I was not feminine enough for this world. The label ‘girly’ never fit. Neither did skirts.
I was never sporty. So that label never fit. So that must mean I’m lazy? Am I unfit? Or unmotivated? But I am none of those things. However, I did not always believe this was the case. I am sporty in other ways. Not in the ways that are seemingly popular in the media, but I keep fit and stay motivated and moving. Unfortunately, I continue to fall short each time of the label ‘sporty’, which my younger self once hoped she would fit into, just so she would be considered ‘cool’.
You label us all as straight. For years I never knew I could be anything else. On discovering I could be more than the label you put on me, it took me years more to rewrite everything I thought I knew. Now, I refuse to label myself anything other than human.
In spite of this, human isn’t a category label. So, this is my break up to all we’ve ever been and never were, and I’m proud to say we never will be. People will question my decision, but I have come – after many countless hours of writing and dreaming – to a conclusion. That I am more than labels suggest. I am more than a box sitting neatly on a shelf with labels and tags that never fit. I’ve questioned why I must confine myself to what people can comprehend and understand, when I know I am made of more than society standards and media made labels.
I never said I never loved you, Labels. All I am saying is that, you were never made for me yet I was born thinking I was made for you.
Maybe one day, I will write an apology and we will go back to being the old friends that we never were.
Until that long and faithful day arises, I wish to say one last thing. I hope you rewrite categories and open your horizons to the world around you. For it is changing.
Best wishes,
Amelhyne