I’m 21 and Having an Identity Crisis

Growing up, I was never really in one clique. I had friends who were athletes, mathletes, League of Legends champions, homebodies, and theater kids. It was nice being someone who got along with everyone. But then I realized that they all belonged to a group, and I never have. And at the age of 21, I found myself having an identity crisis.

As a young adult, every piece of media directed for you is divided into categories: fashion magazine articles want to label you as “glam”, “sweet”, or “tomboy”; TV shows like Glee want you to identify as the bitch cheerleader, the sweet church girl, or the stand-alone diva; movies want you to either root for the princess or the basket case to end up with Emilio Estevez. It’s inescapable. If you don’t have a category to fall into, you start to question yourself—what makes me special? Is it my athletic talent, my voice, my fashion sense, my intelligence—what am I?

I always fell somewhere in the middle of everyone else. I was smart enough to get good grades, but not smart enough to be in the honors program. I was head of my high school dance team, but couldn’t make it into the highly competitive company in college. I enjoyed show choir, but I was not nearly at the same level of talent as the others. I started to realize that just because I could make friends with many cliques, didn’t necessarily mean I belonged to any of them.

A few weeks ago, I watched an indie movie on Netflix focusing on the lives of a family of writers. This was it—this was going to be the movie that made me feel like a part of something. I was eager to find a character to connect to. Until there wasn’t one. The dad was a lonely, stalker divorcee—that certainly wasn’t me. The daughter was a soulless, all-black-everything, “I only hook up so don’t ask me out because I eat nice boys like you alive” kind of girl—that definitely wasn’t me. My only hope was the son, a horror fiction short story writer like myself. Until a sub plot of the movie revolved around him being a virgin with no life experience. Not quite me either.

I broke down. As embarrassing as it is, this movie made me sob uncontrollably for at least an hour, cursing myself for not having stuck to a sport, or not taking voice lessons, or not choosing a certain lifestyle that would have given me a “thing”. Singing is my best friend’s “thing”, comic books are my boyfriend’s “thing”, baseball is my guy friend’s “thing”. I wanted a thing to identify me from everyone else, while also giving me a sense of identity and belonging. I debated changing my look.

Maybe I could start the next school year with a closet full of to-the-knee sundresses and cardigans, playing the sweet, innocent girl. Except my sailor’s vocabulary and inability to sit with my legs crossed ruled that out. Maybe I’d be better off being the girl who wears black cherry colored lipstick daily and carries a copy of The Catcher in the Rye around and only speaks in witty jokes. Except I never understood the literary importance of that book and that much lipstick would probably chap my lips for eternity.

I even considered attempting to get back into ballet, and once again strive to end up en pointe. Even though I couldn’t be a team athlete kind of jock (no hand-eye coordination and a fear of things being thrown at me), I could still be a dancer and belong to a group of girls with tight topknots and footless pink tights. But then I painfully remembered how it felt to be a curvy girl with thick thighs and a butt eating the back of my leotard in a room full of tall, lean girls who weighed maybe a collective 150 pounds. I was already having an identity crisis; I didn’t need to ruin my self-esteem again too.

Probably the hardest part about going through this is the inability to verbalize it. It took me at least two weeks to find the right words to explain to my boyfriend why a charming movie made me cry for hours. But once I did, I found I wasn’t alone. Having a “thing” doesn’t make you belong, nor does it make you special. The thing itself isn’t your identity and neither is the group it categorizes you into. My friend may be an incredible singer, but she isn’t identified by just her voice. She is identified by her unmatchable humor, her rapid-fire sarcasm, and her big, bright blue eyes. My boyfriend’s “thing” may be comic books, but he was also an athlete, volunteers for victims of sexual violence, and is the number one person people go to when they need advice, support, or help.

I may not have one defined “thing”, but I have an identity. I’m the girl whose laugh is heard from a mile away. I’m the girl with a Spongebob or Family Guy reference for any situation. I’m the girl who reads Ralph Waldo Emerson and wears dark lipstick on some days and wears sundresses to a picnic in the park on others. I’m the girl who writes poetry and fiction and magazine articles and just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I’m only a writer.