Friday, October 2, 2009

Definition


Starting college (again) has been a life changing event, obviously. And it has really challenged my ability to define myself to other people. As most of you know, I'm not one for definitions, but since I seem to be meeting new people and being asked lots of questions about who I am and what I do, and how I define myself, I thought I'd give it a shot.

I am: a woman, a student. a sister, a daughter, a friend. a lover and a fighter. a victim and a survivor. a writer. a mathematician. a musician. and activist. sometimes crass, abrupt or abrasive. always stubborn and opinionated. respectful. motivated. desired. loved.

Many of those (and that is really only a small portion) are straight forward, and easy to define, although I can't say that I would define myself by any one of those descriptives. They all play a certain part in who I am, but there seems to be no one defining factor. It's when we whittle everything down, and look at certain things such as "what do you believe?" "what do you want?" that things begin to get muddled.

So far, and as I've chronicled a bit in this blog, I have been unable to define things about myself like religion and sexuality, even though I've run the gamut on both. When it comes to politics, I call myself a liberal, but there are certain issues I am too ignorant of to make any sort of statement.

In college, everyone talks about what they want. A guy in one of my classes said "fame, power and fortune". Oh, if only it were so easy. I can't say... what do I want where? out of life? out of relationships? out of my career or education?

I have to say that from what I can discern, everyone would define themselves in a different context, and at different moments in their lives be different things. I feel ok with that. After realizing that the world is more grey then black and white, things begin to feel less complicated, and there is less forced definition.

For now, all I can answer is that I'm me. And I love me, and I'm happy with where my life is and what I'm doing.