Who Am I? No, Really (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we're talking about identity and belonging.

I think this is a common question for teens and young adults, or at least for those who are even remotely self-aware, but I also think the question never goes away.

Again, for those who are even remotely self-aware.

I remember thinking in high school, and even more so in college, that I had a totally different identity for each of the groups to which I belonged. I was a jock, a geek or brainiac, a cocktail waitress and then a bartender, in student government, in honor societies (where I met the most clean-cut people, I swear they squeaked), a poet, a band groupie, and deeply involved in politics. People's opinions of me depended entirely on how they knew me.

And I let that happen without correcting anyone. It amused me.

Once I went to 5 or 6pm Sunday mass at the on-campus church, and I overheard someone say to their friend, "What's SHE doing here? She's a bartender at Brat Kabin." Apparently I had too many sins, due to my proximity to alcohol on a regular basis, to be worthy of salvation.

Once, when I was cocktail waitressing in college, I ran into my extremely straitlaced boss from the college library, which let's just say was beyond startling to me. As it turned out, it was startling to her, too. She quickly pulled me aside and told me that I couldn't call her "Ms. Powers" at Brat Kabin, as I did in the library, and must call her Cleo, but I also couldn't start calling her Cleo at work. (I then learned that she was also known at Brat Kabin as the Last of the Redneck Mothers. We all have identity issues.) (We also became good friends.)

People who knew me as a jock assumed I must not be too bright. People who knew me from honor societies thought I must be a goody two shoes. People who knew me as a poet figured I must be depressed and/or angsty all the time. (Only sometimes. lol.) And on and on. Honestly, it all amused me, but it seriously confused people when they ran into me in the "wrong" place.

As an author of YA novels, I get a kick out of writing (and reading) stories like that. I've lived that story my whole life.

Even today, how someone knows me (or, more accurately, thinks he or she knows me) depends entirely on how they met me and the number of different activities in which we interact. Most people don't really know me. As a starting point, if they call me "Mary" and not "Mar" (rhymes with care, not car), I don't think of them as knowing me particularly well at all. Yes, this may surprise some of you who read this. But now you know!

Bottom line, I've discovered over the years that a lot of people develop a quick impression of other people and then make assumptions in order to justify that impression. It's lazy, but it supports their world view. (Even though I work two jobs, as a novelist and songwriter/musician, for even longer hours than I did as a lawyer, I actually get asked how retirement feels. I have no idea. Ask someone who's retired.) Those people are missing out on truly getting to know someone else.

Maybe make this the day you actually start asking questions ... and paying attention to the answers. You might make an actual friend.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.