Stereotypes

Thoughts, thoughts....so this blog I want to address thoughts on stereotypes, and talk a bit about how they have affected me, and still do.

Funny huh? I actually have a goal in mind for this entry about my life...Hopefully its a good sign, I do want to get back into examining myself and my reasons for things, into being philosophical about life in general. I think its a good thing for people to do.

So to address stereotypes first I must label myself I guess.

I am...

a college student
a young adult
a female
a submissive
a artist
a bride-to-be
a little
a abuse survivor

and the one that's affected me the most?

I was a foster kid


So now you have all the lovely labels that can be stuck to me, or, well maybe not all. I'm a brunette, an painter, a curvy, tall girl, I'm green eyed....and there are things that are 'tied' to all of those too. However I'm not going to nitpick every detail about myself.

Stereotypes, oh how I hate them, truly, they do hardly anything good for people. Especially in some contexts. The one I loath the most probably is that of foster kid. So many people see that as meaning 'problem kid', ones beyond help and saving, kids that run on the bad side of the tracks, sure to get in trouble. And a foster girl? Oh well they always go back to the life their parents had, or worse, they always end up knocked up at the least, or in jail or the like.

Not.

I guess my anger will read out pretty well through these words, this baring of myself upon the canvas of this blog. It still hurts, how much people read into something so simple as being a foster kid, as not living with your natural parents. A lot of foster kids are taken away from their parents, yes, I chose to leave. I have never fit into the stereotype of a foster child and yet I have been both aided and hurt by it. Sure I got money for it for college and that's how I'm putting myself through school, but outside of that it hasn't done a lot of me. Well, not in ways I like to think of I guess, I can adapt to almost any living space, get along with almost any room mate, I can make myself all but invisible and charm anyone I want. I learned a lot of different dynamics and cultures, learned how to fit into them and not take notice, I learned how to drive myself forward, that no one would be there for me to chase my dreams. I had to do it all alone. Not happy things but still I learned them.

Why do people feel the need to box us in? To put us in labels that so fall short of who and what we are? I don't get it, yes I am all those labels I mentioned, yet none of them is me, they are all just a part of me. People want a easy way to think about others, its human nature to be lazy, hell I find myself falling into it sometimes

"Well so-so is a slave so she must think this way..." or "Who is such a masochist..." I try to shake those off, and that's just taking about lifestyle stuff, it happens in everyday things too, in classes, its so easy to get hooked into that mindset, because you know everything can be neatly labeled these days. That's how one codes address books and just look at our iTunes! But people aren't files or names or numbers, they are people and they don't stay in boxes, in little imposed lines, they blend and bleed out of them, becoming more, always are more then what we see.

I'm submissive but I'm independent, I only put myself before my Master and my Sir, they who earn my devotion and trust. I'm sweet but I can be snippy and proud at times, I'm gentle but I can hit back when I'm hit. We all bleed, we all breathe, and I think its about time others started to stop looking for how others are different, but rather at what they have in common. First thing? We are all human and there should be some sort of basic empathy for others that goes with that....should be.

But far too often there isn't.