I am a collector of labels.
Woman. Mom. Creative. Wife. Widow. Gifted. Underachiever. Pisces. INFP. Enneagram 4w5. Slytherin. Introvert. Single. Taken. Writer. Lazy. Neurodivergent. Late-bloomer. HD Manifestor. Trekkie. Plant Mom. Cat Lady. Mormon. Ex-Mormon…
I collect labels like I’m building a compass. A compass that will tell me I’m making the right choices and going in the right direction, hoping to assuage my anxiety over Time and Existential Destination.
I collect labels to try to construct an identity. An ever-changing identity. A post-everything until now identity. I stand in the produce section weighing different pears in each hand, wondering which pear a purple-haired, mom-of-three, liberal-in-a-red-state woman would eat. Things in life, in this moment, are too calm and there is no crisis to respond to, and so I am momentarily paralyzed by fruit. I am used to feeling a heaviness in all of my choices, so my nervous system now inserts unnecessary weight where there is none. I imagine tying a frozen turkey to each leg to simulate shackles, dragging them through Kroger like some middle class, soccer mom Jacob Marley, reminding everyone that all of our life choices are PROBABLY DIRE. I tie my slacked jaw back onto my head with some saran wrap from aisle 13.
I can’t decide between the pears so I put them both back. And then I remember that I don’t actually like pears, I don’t think. And I shake the imaginary weight off and pay for my groceries and ride my cart through the parking lot to my car like a Razor scooter. If I can inject unnecessary weight, then I can also insert unnecessary levity.
I load my groceries into the trunk.
And then I fling my cart toward the cart return from 20 feet away, because I am Chaotic Good.