Pure Essentials

What’s so scary about labels?

Labels embody the nature of objects so that we can communicate with each other. What’s so scary about that? I have a carton of orange juice in my fridge. I call it orange juice. Tropicana calls it “Tropicana Pure Essentials Not from Concentrate Low Acid Smooth Great Taste” all in big letters and three fonts with the subtitle “100% Pure Squeezed Reduced Acid Pasteurized Orange Juice with Vitamin A, C and Calcium.” I’m glad I don’t have to ask, “Can you please pass the Tropicana Pure Essentials...?” at the breakfast table. “Orange juice” is fine with me.

We humans are a bit like Tropicana. We shroud labels we give ourselves with a slew of caveats and exceptions, “I’m gay, but not like that...”

I’m sitting at home. My flight was cancelled to go to my parents' home for Christmas, and I was told that I wouldn’t be able to catch another flight until the 27th. After 2 hours worth of, “Excuse me, Mr. Iasme, can I put you on hold,” I somehow ended up with a flight leaving on the 24th. I’m just glad I’m not at the airport waiting on hold as I lay on a cot or take refuge in a cardboard box.

It’s raining outside. I have a leak in my bathroom. Ironically, the two are unrelated. I live in a 10 story building, and I’m not on the 10th floor. The unit above is undergoing renovations, and whatever they did in the bathroom is manifesting itself through my light fixture. Luckily, I see no visible damage. I’m hoping the hole from the fixture will be enough to draw the water out, and since I am here tomorrow, we can get things resolved with the workers upstairs when they return. I suppose blessings do come disguised.

So with the rain pouring, a bucket in my bathroom collecting water and making an incessant dribble, and all the while trying to gather enough energy to go to the gym, I eased over to my piano and started playing. Last night I discovered the beginning of I song I wrote years ago. There’s something to it that resonates. I wrote a few more measures yesterday. I sat down tonight and played it through and thought about labels.

As of late, my insecurities have erupted in me to the point of becoming debilitating. I shy away from labels of which I feel I am not worthy. This is not a new tendency, but I’ve noticed that it’s become increasingly difficult to label myself. We realize a person is too complex to be labeled as succinctly as orange juice, and as Tropicana points out, orange juice just aint that simple either. I think we often feel restricted by a label because we are so much more than that. But a label is only a part of the larger definition of ourselves.

I wonder how the label Mormon applies to me. It’s still a big part of my life because religion has always been important to me. But I don’t feel like I’m very Mormon these latter days. It’s a rather singular sensation to realize I identify less as Mormon because I’m gay, when I don’t feel I can fully take on the homosexual title either. I will always have the label Son and Brother. But I don’t feel like I’m all that great of a son or a brother.

About a year and a half ago I went to a local music store to buy some music. The head of the choral music department stood behind the counter and was overly eager to help me. I didn’t realize at the time that he was hitting on me.

I remember he asked me pointedly, “Are you a musician?” I fumbled. I was put on the spot of assuming a label.

Musician? “No, I don’t consider myself a musician. I just like to sing.”

Sure, I played the saxophone for 6 years, was first chair in the marching and symphonic bands throughout junior high and high school. Sure, my mom taught me to play the piano when I was 5 and I’ve played ever since. Sure I’ve sung in church choirs since I was 12. Sure I sing in a local city choir that travels to major venues in the area. But me a musician? I wouldn’t dare call myself that.

And therein lies the issue. I wouldn’t dare. I just don’t feel good enough or deserving enough of the label. I feel like those people who truly are experts at their craft have earned the right to hold such a lofty title. But not me.

It hit me while playing the piano. I don’t feel much good at anything right now. How do I pull myself out of this mental handicap? To begin with, perhaps I need to start owning my labels. In narrative psychology, are we not what we say we are? Isn’t our very existence based on verbal birth? I remember when first coming out to myself, I couldn’t vocalize that I am gay. I was afraid that if I said it, it would really be true. I didn’t want to accept that truth. Of course, it was true, and by avoiding it, I was changing nothing.

I wonder if the reverse application of this principle can affect my attitude and lift me out of this awful self-absorbed state. Can I take on the label musician? Homosexual? Mormon? Brother? Son? And in the act of embracing those labels find the motivation to truly become what I say I am? If I say I am nothing, am I not really nothing?

Usually thought of as restrictive, labels can be immensely plastic according to our own self awareness. Our labels our what we make them. We define them. Just like Tropicana’s 26 words describing orange juice, I can describe my labels to be who I am and who I want to be.