Never Walked In High Heels

“Once you label me, you negate me”

~ Soren Kirkegaard

There are many moments when I utterly hate every belief I claim to have. Every political classification I fall under seems to be grossly unpopular by everyone else I know. I believe  in God, which in our present times is accounted as being grossly under evolved and  barbaric. I’m from a relatively stable white middleclass family and we all know that’s not cool. In fact, according to some of my friends, this is a prime formula for being sheltered and spoiled while wearing a pink twin set and pearls at my desk job as assistant editor somewhere in the Hamptons.

It seems like the one label that keeps me out of being disliked by my friends, who routinely inform me that they dislike all of the above, is my disability. This is, oddly enough, the one label I’m always trying to loose. It seems to be the one which somehow segregates me from the rest of  the world. I have to go through the disabled entrances, apply for disability arts grants, and get “special services” at school. Because I’m disabled, I’ve been told, I must know what real people are like rather than just what people are like on Martha’s Vineyard. And with these overly judgmental people, it almost makes me wonder if I’m simply their friend because I am disabled rather than because of everything else that I am.

  “How can you claim to be X and Y?” my friends will charge at me. Or my favorite, “of course you feel that way, you’re a white conservative Christian.” They forget, of course, that X and Y are made up of most of the exact same linear structure. They seem to also forget that I come to most of my conclusions because I live my life as Athena Stevens and all that entails, not because I reference everything in my How to be a Proper White Conservative Christian Girl handbook which these friends seem to think I have hidden under my bed. There are a huge amount of issues on which I am very liberal (what do these titles even mean anymore?).  And there are many times when I can barely begin to believe in God.

Of course usually all labeling really hurts me. Is that what he thinks of me? Do I really come across as being that judgmental and snobbish. Am I just another brat to add to the mix? Am I perpetuating the status quo? But I never think, do my “friends” even bother to get to know me? Do they not see me and the plethora of beliefs I hold that run up against everything they claim to despise? Or what about the fact that I really don’t fit into any of the camps you put me in, especially the disability one. Most of the time the parties and organizations I choose to associate myself with look at me funny.

Wiser people than me will ask: why even bother calling such judgmental people your friends? It’s because just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by a single opinion I have, I don’t think its fair to do likewise with anyone else. Being alive is a fluid process and we are all consistently inconsistent. Some days we are X and others we’re Y. Don’t try and label me. The only label I will ever fully fit into is my own name