Labels & Masks

I've been thinking about "labels" lately. You know, like how people label eachother in order to put them in a nice, neat category. "She's the wild one" or "he's a nerd." I can see this clearly living in a medium sized town where many people know one another, sometimes for their whole lives. This makes me crazy. None of us are good or bad or funny or angry all the time. There is no black or white, life is gray. Growing up, my sisters and I were taught to be "good girls." Meaning, be nice, don't show your anger because that's not good. I'm sure my parents had this behavior instilled into them too. But it's not good to hold things in all the time. You have to take off the mask and show yourself for who you are. Personally, I get tired of people thinking I'm so "nice" all the time. Sure, I have alot of empathy and I can't stand to see anyone (even a fly or ant) suffer; and I try to be pleasant to people when I can. But, I get angry and cranky and pissed off like everyone else!

Then, of course you have your cultural labels, like "Americans are rude, Italians are dirty, French are wimps", etc. I don't even want to get into racial and regional labels. Why can we all accept eachother as we are? We're imperfect, all of us. We're connected and we're family. Please take off your masks and I'll try to do the same. It takes honesty and trust.

We live pretty much like slobs, Terry and I. We both work full time, but find great joy in our creative passions. So, when we have free time we like to go to our studios and create. We don't really cook, clean, weed, dust, or do laundry until we have to. We're also "allowed' to be "selfish" because we don't have kids, so we are able to focus on what makes us happy instead of raising children. In a perfect world we'd be able to spend all of our time creating our passions and have a housekeeper, cook and gardener to do the rest. But, we don't and I have plenty of guilt because I can't do it all (Terry doesn't). I laugh to myself when I see all of our neighbors tending their lawns and flower beds while Terry and I have weeds growing through our gravel driveway and we're both in the studio. What can I say? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, but I'm off to my studio. Screw it.