When filling in the “About Me” sections of the dozens of websites [an interesting location for identity too!] that ask you to create profiles, my description of myself always runs along the same lines: I am a Christian, a Texan, a writer, a dancer, a photographer and a musician. If there is space left, perhaps I dig deeper, adding that I am the child of divorced parents, of two unusually, beautifully dysfunctional families, of a deaf woman. Perhaps I even grow more specific about earlier details, explaining that I was UCC/Presbyterian until I was eleven, and then began going to a Southern Baptist church, though I truly hate “denomination” labels, or that I am not simply a Texan, I am a Northeastern Texan. I am an “airport baby”, [I like that] since three of my parents have worked for American Airlines, and a child of the eighties and nineties, as seen by the atrocious fashion and hair cuts of my elementary school years. [oh, every elementary school has atrocious style, no matter the era! :) ]What I leave out [nice]of the About Me sections, though, might be just as important. I do not mention I am a “girl” because I take it for granted, and particularly not a “woman,” since the word still feels like some heavy role I have not quite grown into yet. I do not mention I am Polish or Irish, since my last name and red hair give those away. And what about the other things, the private labels and diagnose that I wear like my own Scarlet Letters that I am too ashamed to speak or write, much less broadcast for the world to recognize in me?

We live in a world obsessed with labels, and this perhaps arises from an obsession to discover who we are, [nice]where we fit in the world, and who is like us. Our “place” is different, though, at least in my mind. My place in the world is more than the words I put in the About Me section or the slogans my T. shirts sport or what I fill in on my resume. I am a member of the Cummings clan, the family that ruled Scotland before being driven to France by Robert the Bruce. When I was eight, I not only decided I did not want to date until I was sixteen (and I kept this rule), but I would grow physically ill when thinking about all the other sick and dying children in the world, I was empathetic to a fault. I spent years playing sports and wearing boy clothes, trying to dispel my at-times estranged father’s chauvinistic remarks about the “weaker, stupider,” sex. I spent the past year rebelling against him, including attending school in Boston, something he told me I could not do. Boston, a city as foreign to the people at my home as Azerbaijan or Germany, two countries which I proudly have added to my list of homes-away-from-home. These things all describe me as much as any simple one-word labels. [really good writing here, Jessa]

I am proud to be a Texan. Despite my insistence that I do not have an accent, I feel a twinge of satisfaction every time someone laughs at the way I speak, because it singles me out and makes me important. Life seems a series of skipping back and forth across the line, sometimes wanting nothing more than to blend in, at others wanting to stand out and declare yourself. No matter where I venture in my life, though, I feel Texas will always be my home, and being in a place so very different --be it Boston, Heidelberg, or Baku– has taught me how much I love both my state and my country. As both a Texan and an American, I live to dispel the stereotypes that people cast on me because of those titles. I could live off of tortillas and queso, but my favorite food is bleu-cheese-stuffed mushrooms from an Irish pub near my home. I am proud and grateful every day to live in the United States, but I am not so arrogant to think that we as Americans are always right or better than even the countries steeped in poverty. My father is ashamed to be Polish and Irish because those emigrants had a very different stigma attached to them than they do now, but I am just as proud to be Irish, Polish, Scottish, Danish, Native American, British, and French, as I am to be simply American. Different time periods [or political situations?] give different “places” more or less value.

My places in my family, in society, in the world influence me, but I am loathe to say they define me. Rather, I like to look at my places historically and socially as explanations as to why I am the way I am. I like to list what I do to cover up the fact that I am unable to really define myself with words. Actions speak louder than words, after all.

Because my mom is deaf, I grew up young, forced to be her ears in an adult world. Because my parents are divorced, I have a very cynical view of men, women, and relationships. Because I am a Christian, I have a very strong moral code I follow, and because I am a Texan, I have very Southern traditions and values. Because I had an overly critical father, I have struggled with issues that at times have seemed insurmountable. Because I grew up reading the Classics instead of First Grade Readers or New York Times bestsellers, my writing style and literary taste is somewhat unusual. Because I have been to a country that I adore but where people do not have any Bill of Rights, I do not take my citizenship here for granted. My place in the world is simply a series of “Because I...”s or “Because my...”s. [So experience-oriented]

What does this all mean for me, though? It means that my places are always going to be changing. As restless as I am geographically, this passes down into my social and historical places, and every other place imaginable. The connotations people give to the labels I amass for myself have an influence on me, but so do the connotations I myself give to my own labels, and it bounces back and forth which one is more resilient. The world can think what it wants, but at the end of the day, I am the one going to sleep with my collection of places, and so I refuse to stake a claim where I do not wish to belong, no matter how hard I have to fight to free myself, or vice versa.

[95 A Jessa, this is an excellent response. I love your free-ranging, meditative, experience-oriented view of identity! You recognize that more than anything, it’s dynamic and a process. And yet here you account so well for the specificity of your experiences.]