After the conversation we had in class on Thursday on revealing our personal phrases, many thoughts were going through my mind. Up until that discussion, I had been giving my phrase a lot of thought but had never expressed these ideas. It was a very interesting experience to finally vocalize the phrases I had been thinking. I had always been considering identity as traits that set me apart; and not necessarily groups in which I pertain to. After many discussions over the past weeks, I have come to realize that race, sexuality, religion, etc., all contribute to your personality traits and allow you to give yourself an identity.
“Give yourself an identity” is a phrase I have been struggling with most the entire semester. Every time I have been trying to come up with my own “I am _______, but also ________.” phrase, I knew that meant I had to start with who I “am”. This sounds so easy but when actual given the task, I found myself drawing blanks. Who am I? Am I really that, or do I just want to be that? I found myself battling between what identity I want to have, what identity I didn’t want to have, and trying to decide how that meant I really saw myself. Have I been choosing traits or groups to make up my identity because that’s how I want to / don’t want to associate myself? I think a powerful realization I had surrounded the idea that since I have never really associated myself with a group (i.e. Christian, heterosexual, etc.), then why start now?
My entire life growing up I have never been surrounded by religion, have never considered being straight as a defining characteristic in my life, being white as making me who I am, and so on. Even though I agree with my peers that all of the groups are important to my identity, I wouldn’t consider them being a central factor in which to make my statement from. After realizing this, I decided to keep looking for a phrase.
There was one particular comment that really stuck with me even after leaving the classroom discussion. Someone mentioned that we shouldn’t get caught up on thinking other people are putting insignificant things. Even though to us it may seem trivial or not important, to the person who wrote the statement it could mean the world. This was important to me for two reasons. First, this will definitely stick with me as I read all the statements people submit as the project continues. Even if I wasn’t thinking it originally, I am happy to know that if the thought of “Oh, that comment isn’t anything special” comes to my mind I will remember that it might be special to whoever wrote the statement. Secondly, this is helpful because I was so stressed on coming up with something that other people would read and think was significant, I was starting to forget that the statement is about me. By taking the pressure off myself for coming up with a phrase that I feel others will find interesting, hopefully it will allow me to truly find a statement that rings true to how I feel about my identity. I hope all my classmates, peers, and all you reading this an involved in the project come to this realization, because ultimately it encompasses one of the topics in which our project is striving for people to realize; their own identities, not others.
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