The Identity You're Given

Non-Fiction
Written By Elizabeth Russell

When I was prompted to write about my identity, I had to wonder: How many times had I been identified as something that seemed so marvelously incongruent with the way that I identified myself? Could I even draw the line between the identities I was given and the ones I’d created for myself?



I’m pretty sure the “conference room” started its life as a walk-in closet. It certainly still served as a storage space, except when it needed to be something else. When it needed to be a meeting space, the room’s chairs — normally askew — were righted and the scratches and stains of its table took on new depth. There was tangible proof that this room had seen some action, but I was doubtful that that action had come from this particular crowd.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about the story I’m about to tell?

I’m thankful that I had my back to the windows that day. They looked over the “open office” space where I knew everyone sat feigning busyness while they waited to see what would burst forth from this unexpected meeting. My back gave them nothing, not the way my face surely would have.

I hadn’t chosen to sit in that spot on purpose. I hadn’t anticipated the redness of my face, the sudden tears. And I can’t say it really helped once the rumors spread. But it gave me the time I needed to, at the very least, get my brain wrapped around the fact that I was now the new girl who cried at work.

I can remember staring down the table at my new boss of only three months or so. I had been, in that short time, trying to be as much of a sponge as possible. I was trying to understand what I could about this new industry, about these new standards, but I was, admittedly, struggling. I had left a job where I was a top dog, managing a team, a project and budgets in Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy; now I found myself unable to speak this industry’s lingo and coming up short on seemingly basic tasks.

I had been excited to be pulled into a producers’ meeting to learn more. This, I thought, is where the magic will happen. Finally.

He began: “People don’t like you guys.”

As a person, he was blunt. Direct. Two qualities I have always liked to see in leadership. But this was… well, not the magic I was hoping for.

He went around the table: “E—, people think you’re aloof. M—, people think you don’t care. Liz…” he got around to me. 

Too dumb? Not trying hard enough? Hopelessly unorganized? Not ready for the challenge?

In the last three months, each of these thoughts had wandered into my mind at some point or another. I had spent those first few months of that job being forced to leave practice voicemails on my new boss’ phone, even though I was a millennial that had been leaving voicemails literally since middle school. I was a child of the answering machine days, for god sakes! But still I practiced. I was told to be less like myself but to have more personality. To take ownership but then to not do anything that I wasn’t exactly told how to do. I was given scripts before meetings, taught how to “frame things,” and was told, in short, to ignore the basic instincts I had honed in the first 5 years of my career.

“Too dumb? Not trying hard enough? Hopelessly unorganized? Not ready for the challenge? In the last three months, each of these thoughts had wandered into my mind at some point or another.”

So in the middle of that meeting, when I read the room and saw where this was headed, I felt like nothing would have surprised me at this point.

“…people think you’re arrogant.”

Except that.

I had not expected “arrogant” — I, the person who believed over the last three months that I couldn’t leave a voicemail, had a questionable personality, could not be trusted to act on my own. Nor had I expected what came next: a visceral reaction to what was ultimately some basic schoolyard name-calling. I could feel my nose begin to tingle, an itch building behind my eyes, and redness pushing itself forward in full force. I felt it all unfold but couldn’t pull any of it back; it was this fact — the involuntary nature of crying — that finally punctured my balloon. 

Pop. Tears.

When I was prompted to write about my identity, this story came flooding into my memory. How many times had I been identified as something that seemed so marvelously incongruent with the way that I identified myself?

“What did you think of me when we first started dating?” I asked Boyfriend Brad. After nearly 10 years in the trenches, he knew every strategy I had, every battlefield I’d died on, every landmine I’d ever laid. But he didn’t know me back then. How would he reconcile the person he met then with the person he lived with now? 

“I thought you were mature. I liked talking to you.”

HA! 

Mature was the last word I would have used to describe the 22-year-old me. Fresh out of college and making more money than I’d ever seen before, I had not a care in the world and nothing better to do than spend my money at my favorite bar with my best girl Annie B. and our guitar-swinging, sidekick A-bomb. I can’t tell you all of the strange places we puked together, us three. “Mature” was simply not the word for any of it.

“Seriously!” I pressed. “Why did you want to hang out with me when we very first met - like first, first, first met? We played volleyball. We talked while watching the Bruins game. Do you remember what you were thinking?”

“I am being serious. I liked talking to you. We had interesting conversations. I couldn’t do that with other girls our age.” Like I said - he knew everything. He’d clearly come well-defended. I surrendered and left the battlefield to another day.

But still I wondered: if that’s truly how he felt, how could he see a maturity in me when I couldn’t see it in myself? To my mind, the maturity came much later, forced upon me by this same boyfriend who acknowledged far sooner than I that we were growing up, that we couldn’t just keep doing things the way we did at 22. If I matured, it’s because he made me. 

“Pop. Tears. Then...”

When I think back to that storage slash conference room, being belittled by a boss that I ultimately had no respect for, I can see this same pattern in what transpired next.

Pop. Tears. Then…

“I’m sorry but in the industry I came from, we dealt with real issues. Not this kind of crap.”

There: Arrogance. I had been, after all, working at a high level in the disaster recovery industry. Think hurricanes. Think explosions. Like I said — real issues. If I was being given this identity - “arrogant, crying new girl” — I was going to use it to triumph.

I had a new job offer before I even reached my sixth month at the company. I never ask myself if I should have stuck it out or been more amenable to others, but I do often wonder this: Has arrogant, crying new girl been killed off or is she still lying somewhere in wait in the pit of who I am, alongside my immaturity? 

I’m not sure we can ever really draw the line between the identities we’ve been given, the ones we’ve taken on, and the ones we’ve created from our very own core. Looking back, they hardly seem exclusive of one another. Would I have matured eventually? Let’s hope. Would I have cried at work someday? Probably. So instead I’ll embrace fluidity: today, I’m Liz Russell, tired writer, surviving off checklists and coffee. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

For more on identity…

This essay was jump-started by a writing prompt from Illuminate, a writing program by The Kindred Voice. For more on identity, written by some truly inspiring women, check out:

Elizabeth Russell
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