Other Gen-Xers and I have been stereotyped as not accepting labels, yet everyone goes through points in time when the labels that they once accepted as a part of their lives become superfluous. Perhaps, this has happened more often for Generation X.
We are known for being the generation that were latch-key kids. We, in some ways, raised ourselves or, as I see it, had nearly limitless options for our own unsupervised time. After my high school day was completed, I had choices to make for my time and a key to a house to use. It was up to me as to how I wanted and when I wanted to use both of those options. This kind of upbringing provides for a plethora of wonderful things. Several of those are: 1. I decide how to use my own time, 2. I choose people more individually, 3. I create space for what I want to do, 4. I say no, and 5. I expect privacy and boundaries.
Because I didn't have a highly supervised experience while I was younger, I was feer to accept the labels that I thought fit me as a person at the time or reject the ones that I have found to be irrelevant. For example, for a long time, I understood myself as a "student." Now, I, still learning and even if I went back to a university for more education, wouldn't need the label. I don't understand myself this way; I find "student" to be what being alive is, so the label is irrelevant. To state student is to also at some point state an inherent humanness. There just isn't a need for the label from my point of view. Why then continue to hold on to the label as though it were treasure pealed from a Cambell's soup can to turn in for class points?
Identity work has a lot of labels involved in it. In my late 20s, I chose to place myself in therapy and completed a lot of identity work. I started removing labels that people placed on me much earlier in life long before that, but because I did, I seemed to be unfit to be in the world around those who had their labels, stuck to them, and had needed them to be valid for everyone. Like every generation, Gen X is between two other generations who need their identity and labels for them. The Boomers had their lives figured out and the Millenials had their grandparents, parents, and siblings to affirm the labels they were giving to one another. Meanwhile, I, a single Gen Xer, kept removing mine as do most Gen Xers still today. It seems that we tolerate the labels needed to appease those around us from time to time, but for the most part, I and others have resolved to be in our own lives to the removal of labels.
My own key, when I was younger, meant that I had my own responsibility to get what I needed to be done at school (which was also a place of employment for me) and home when I was available to get it done. Usually there was a timeframe; however, timing was still my choice. I, fortunately for my father, am an introvert, so I didn't really get into trouble. I went home. I was an honors student and in the band, so I had practice, homework, and a job. I didn't have a lot of pressure to get things done for someone else's expectation or on someone else's incessant timeline. I've always worked within those but not to the detriment of my freedom of choice. My choices were limited; however, I could have still pretty much chosen to do whatever I wanted with my life. I didn't need to achieve anything for anyone else. I had enough ambition and self-motivation not to need someone else's. I didn't have the label to look up to or bestowed on me such that I needed to have.
I don't have the label -- veteran. I don't have a parental label or an espoused one. I have my name. I know what I've done in my life, but as far as Self labels, I don't need them other than to appease another person's curiosity. I think in terms of what I am doing. In my identity work, I challenged a lot of the labels that were placed on me and exchanged all of them at one point for Child of God. It's the only one that I really think that I need to have. In the past year, my LGBTQ+ label has been in great demand to be explained and confessed as though I were living in sin and hiding my reality.
I don't have the same experience that most have with this part of life or that most people seem to extort about this part of life. I've only ever needed the label because someone else needed it for themselves. I don't really need the label. I know who I am and what I am atrtracted to and how that has changed over time. As most will tell you, things change over time. My need to have a label for other people hasn't changed. I wish it had changed, but the need to be labeled creates a pidgeon-hole effect. I don't have the need to be "trans," "gay," "pan," "poly," "boi," etc. For most of my life, I haven't labeled. I just used queer for a long time. Creating subcategories and understandings beyond queer has caused division and dissension. I'm going back to just Child of God with my own key and my own timeline to get what I choose to do done, whether other people want that to be that way or not.
I would rather just be than fit in to be.
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