Over the past thirty days, I’ve spent countless hours applying for jobs, scheduling informational interviews, and talking on the phone with people more successful than me about how to start my career in New York City. The job hunt is tiresome; I knew that going in, and still, it’s been a difficult few weeks. I’m grateful to have a network of supportive folks cheering me on, reminding me that I’m doing all the right things. Yet, I can’t help but feel that through this process, I’m struggling the most with myself, more than anything.
These days, I feel the pressure to package myself, to fit myself nicely into a box labeled WHO I AM. In this tiny box, I can fit all the parts of myself. I can summarize all my experiences and skills into a single bullet point. I can package my sexual identity in a neat folder with a clear label. I can put my college degree and my childhood in Florida, my semester in Prague and my dorm fire, my secrets and shames, my traumas and triumphs. All of it goes into this tiny box.
As an artist and a writer, I struggle with this idea even more. Often people ask me what I write or what kinds of films I make and I never really know what to say. In part I think this is because I am young and I haven’t found my voice yet, that I don’t really know myself deeply enough to be able to answer the most simple of questions about my artist practice. It’s ironic that as a writer, I really struggle to find the words to explain myself and my artistic practice. So again, I dial the phone and try to muster up some words to convey who I am, without really knowing it myself.
Of course, being me, I bring all these questions back to capitalism, and whether it is to blame (hint: it is). I think capitalism is certainly part of this feeling of being commodified. As artists, we must create works of art that will sell; otherwise, we’re shit out of luck for rent and groceries. Do I need to do one thing really well? Do I need to be a comedy writer OR a drama writer OR a novelist OR a screenwriter? Try as I might, I can’t really separate myself from those considerations, and so, in thinking about my art, again, I feel the need to be, as Amy puts it in Little Women, great or nothing.
Among all this, I’m trying to find ways to not simply think outside the box, but to redesign the box completely. In fact, I think my box is not a box at all. Instead, I think maybe it’s one of those Russian Dolls-- the type of strange object that contains multitudes and layers. Just when you think you’ve reached the final form, the finished version, there’s still another layer underneath, more intricate and beautiful than you could have ever imagined.
The truth is that none of us fits into these boxes and labels assigned to us; we’re all just floating out there trying to figure it out (and in a global pandemic and climate crisis, among other hellish scenarios). It’s not original of me to say that I’d like to escape this box; even now, I wonder if the act of writing about this phenomenon further intellectualizes it, reinforcing our tendency to use language to categorize and restrict our inherent state of simply being.
I’ll leave you with this, which truly isn’t much. To anyone out there tired of a world of boxes and pods and right and wrong, if you’re reading this: you’re not alone! I’m right there with you. And if you want, maybe we can share a box, or at least, talk for a little while and figure out how to fit into these damned things anyway.
Rachael Labes (she/hers) is the founder and managing editor of Story Girl Magazine. She is a writer and filmmaker with a passion for abolitionist teachings and uplifting women's + LGBTQ voices.