Labels- Part 3: Personal Labels

I've been thinking a lot recently about the way people describe themselves. The labels they voluntarily assume and even dress themselves in. Their personal description that appears on their profile. It is fascinating to me to see what people consider to be their defining characteristics.

For example: on my own profile and even my blog title, I lead with Atheist Homeschooler, a godless mother at home with two children. Am I limited by that label? Possibly. There certainly is nothing exciting to live up to in that title. In fact there are probably certain expectations people have of me when they come to my blog:

Atheist- probably will have anti-religious content occassionally, might get bombed by a few fundies, tends more toward rational as opposed to fanciful posts, reason as opposed to faith based thinking.
Homeschooler- anticipate posts about education, socialization, probably fairly radical thinking on both, posts will probably be fairly well spelled and organized.

I feel the pressure of that last one too. It's been a constant struggle to use "it's" and "its" correctly. Somewhere along the line I have developed a tendency to write in short choppy incomplete sentences that I am constantly going back and correcting. I also have gotten lazy about capitalizing first words in a sentence, for whatever reason. All corrected because of the self-imposed label of homeschooler. People might think I have no business teaching my kids anything if I can't even keep my blog in order. People may think that anyway.

However, there is more to me and my life then is revealed in the heading...Atheist Homeschooler. There is who I am on a day-to-day basis: mother, caregiver, child care provider, teacher, mate, daughter, lover, friend, neighbor, sister. There is who I want to be.

Thus far, on this blog, I've explored who I am, where I've come from.

But who do I want to be? As if I didn't have enough with who I already am on a day to day basis. When I write, I feel myself living a more significant life. I talk of things in a dramatic style. Is that arrogant of me? Possibly. But I do not desire the ordinary, I want to reach for the extraordinary, to be more than I have become, to no longer settle for "good enough".

Behold! The transformation from Atheist Homeschooler to PHOENIX RISING.

lol