Labels. Do you like 'em? Sure, they're helpful on the back of packaged foods... er... maybe not so much but hey. What about labels on people? Yourself? Do you find that when you hear someone putting a label on somebody, you just accept it? Or do you say pish-posh to it and go find out what the real deal is? What about the labels people put on you? Do you live up to those labels or do you fight them or perhaps ignore them and hope that people will realize those labels are false? Now what about the labels you put on yourself? Oh yes, you put labels on yourself. Didn't you know? Are they positive or negative ones?
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I mentioned in the previous post that I was feeling all dusty & cobwebby inside. I should perhaps expound on that just a little and get back to what I was just talking about here. I'm feeling stunted, cramped, you know... like I'm in this ill-fitting suit and have a crick in my neck on top of it. The suit is heavy, hot & uncomfortable and it is NOT attractive at all. Like those jazzercise leotards that horror of horrors I wore back in the early 80's when my older sisters signed up for classes. They would come home and do the routines with me. ANYWAY. *coughs* I'm just plain not happy with where I'm at in life. Emotional, spiritual, physical, and any other -als there may be.
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In doing a self-assessment... I'm realizing that I'm living up to labels that I don't like. Imposed by others and also self-imposed. Here is one I'm working on bucking off.

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Shy: I HATE this one! When I was in highschool... I was kind of shy but not in the typical sense. I experienced many incidents where people would talk with me and because of my accent or the way I would watch their lips (so I could read!) they would get uncomfortable and that would be that. Done before anything could get started up. So... I became quiet and would rather observe than engage. I isolated myself to protect myself from the hurts. After I graduated from HS, my church set up a Young Adult ward where those 18-30 could mix & mingle with the hopes of meeting somebody. Anyway, for the first time in my life... nobody knew me from HS. People thought I was cool to hang out with. I LOVED it! I met guys and gals and became friends with practically everyone. People were happy to see me and I'm not puffing myself up like a peacock. It was just... I finally shed the SHY persona that people thought I had and that I unfortunately allowed to flourish in HS.

Then I got married. And became a member of a Family ward. I struggled with this as the ward we attended had some people who knew me as a youth... and I felt like I was getting sucked back into that "shy" mode that they knew. I shouldn't have allowed myself to do that but I did.

Time went by and we had moved to a different city and again, attended a Family ward and I hated it. Ohh boy did I hate it. Not only was I getting snide remarks about why we weren't pregnant yet ("You've been married HOW long?!? Pretty selfish...") and then there were some women there that I thought I could be friendly with and when I introduced myself, I got the odd & confused stares like the ones I used to get in HS. They would ask me to repeat and when I did and they still couldn't figure it out, they just walked away. WALKED away! That hurt. I felt all my wounds from my youth just being ripped open and I withdrew. I couldn't handle it. I went inactive at that time and didn't attend church for years.

Again, time went by and we moved to yet another city. I was a little apprehensive as we were moving into my husband's sibling's ward and they are the most social people I have ever met. I would introduce myself and people would say, "OHHH! You're so & so's brother/sister-in-law. We just love them so much!" And that would be the end of the conversation! OK. We stuck it out though and eventually the sibling moved out of the ward. The ward changed in dynamics (as in new people came in) and I came to a point where I had fallen in love with the people. We had friends that would come over and share a meal with us. We were invited to parties and we held parties. There would be late-night impromptu girls' night out. We were known as the *** Family (Asterisked the last name to protect the not so guilty, not so innocent.) I didn't have that blasted label of "shy" on me. But sadly... people began to move away again. I felt a little lost. I also felt out of place.

I know a lot of it is just my own insecurity. I have just been burned too many times by people not giving me the chance to see past my accent. See past my bits of confusion when I'm not certain as to what's exactly going on. In an odd way, I feel like I need to become like a hardened criminal. haha! Not really, but I do need to let myself not be put off by what I assume they're thinking. If they don't get my accent or whatever, I'm not going to let it go. That freaks me out.... next thing I know is I'll have the label, "freak!" on me!!!

Whew - this was long! Thank you for reading through it. I don't really need comments or anything of that sort. I just needed to get this out there and air it out so I can get moving and dusting those cobwebby feelings out of me.