puszysty

I've been suffering from an identity crisis. I was sitting at the women of color dinner listening to people talk about how proud they are of who they are. I think it's a great thing to have, but its relaly something I lack. I was asking myself why I attend things like these, after all, I'm not a woman of color (well, I at least have half of that down). Granted, I do think other cultures are really interesting because they're all so different, but I think I also have this problem- I don't feel like I have an identity, but I really want one.

Everyone is looking for something that makes them special. No one wants to be just another person in a crowd. I'm not sure I've ever felt special. I've been an outsider most of my life, someone no one really wanted to be really good friends with. I didn't have a great talent, or a great fashion sense (in fact my fashion got me laughed at more than anything), or an out of the ordinary religion, or great stories to tell about my family's history. I had my brain, which is not something that other kids care about. I struggled to be part of a group, but part of that struggle meant having something special that made me worthy of a group.

I can remember my dad taking me quite often to pow wows around Michigan. Not just as a touristy thing, but being an actual participant. I wore this outfit he had made and would go out an dance around. I felt kind of awkward at them because (at least I though) everyone else dancing was truly native american. I am something like 1/128, but that's not enough for me to consider myself native american (even legally, you have to be 1/8 to be native american). And being honest here, I'm not sure many people consider being white and christian, especially in america, to be an identity. Maybe we're too varied to be considered an identity, maybe it's because we're the majority. I know significant amounts of my genealogy (not counting my 1 grandfather's side since he's adopted), and through class projects I came to see what was typical of other people's. In that, I did have something no one else did- I could claim to be Swiss. I started clinging to that, telling people that I am Swiss, which I still do to this day. However, I never learned much about Swiss culture, I had no stories, no dishes, no articfacts, and especially no traditions. I have nothing to make me Swiss other than a couple of relatives that have been dead since before even my dad was born.

So I've been 'trying on' other cultures. I marched in the homecoming parade with international relations club, and since I was not about to be the person carrying the american flag with all the others holding foreign flags that they represented up high, I thought I'd grab a shirt with a country I was pretty sure no one was from. So I was greek that day, I even grabbed a greek cd that I had bought on a whim because I wanted to know what greek music sounded like, which- having that to play made me look even more greek. One of my friends thought I actually was for a while. For the international food fair, I wore a palestinian dress, trying to make myself look like I actually belonged at the food fair. Heck even this journal is a product of my identity crisis- puszysty is a polish word. I settled on it 1. because it looked cooler than the german word equivalent but 2. because I was in my polish phase after a book I read.

Being American just doesn't do it for me, I suppose. American culture is so universal now, it's hard to see it as special. And it's stigmatic- I want to have something I can be proud of, not something I go out into the world and have to be ashamed of. Course there is patriotism, which I am somewhat lacking because I don't like the way america is so ignorant, but the issue of me and patriotism is something else altogether (aka I'll save that for later).

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking this. Maybe I do have an identity, I just haven't discovered it yet. I just want something to be proud of that I can share with others. That's all.