i am me

i hate labels.

not post labels. once i figured out what i was doing and how they worked, i've found them most helpful. in fact, i'm probably the only one that uses the labels i've attached to my posts.

no, i hate how we feel the need to label ourselves and others. and i guess this is becoming an issue for me because i feel the need to define who i am and what i am doing, because i am trying to brand myself online. and i'm one of those people that, for the most part, wants to live label free.

i don't want people to come up to me and read any label or sign that's been attached and say, oh, you're a stay at home mom, which means that you are such and such and like so and so, and all this other stuff must also be true. when usually it's not. i am me, i am who i am. i might be like some other stay at home moms, but i am also very different. and i hate when people assume that i will think and act a certain way just because one thing is true.

the problem is that i feel like we all label people all the time. we look at them and label them in our minds, and then unless we keep an open mind about things, it's very hard to shake off that preconception. it's why everyone says first impressions are so important. and for me they are so difficult, mostly because i am so awkward i make a terrible first impression.

invariably i get labelled as a mother. and the fact i stay home all day means something too. it means i don't have a job and i don't go out much. i must know a lot about preschool tv but not so much about politics or the world of business. and some of that really is true, but not all of it. i've not always been a mother. and even though i am right now, i am also a lot of other things. it's not like i look at someone that works in a office and say that they are an office drone, so that must be their whole life and who they are and all they are.

yes, i understand that being a parent is a full time job. and staying at home with an especially little one really does make it the only full time job i have. and at the moment i don't even have a part time job, so in the eyes of most, this is all i do. i will admit, too, that there are times where i fall back and let the labels speak for me. i'll let people i've just met believe what they want to believe about me from only hearing a two minute introduction. because it's easier sometimes. it's easier to let people believe what they want then to try to change their preconceptions and break out of the mold they've put you in.

and sometimes, after a particularly hard day, i will look around and think that this is all there is. that this life is the only life i have. and that is terribly depressing. because even though i know i am doing very important work (i'm raising the next generation!), i want to be remember for something more.

i want to be remembered for being me.