Non-conformist is a label

I am a non-conformist who hates labels. Yes, i see the irony in that statement. I'm still trying to find a way to describe myself without using that phrase because, well, we have already established why. I hate labels and non-conformist on it's own is a label.

Before i explain my attitude towards labels, I'd like to point out why i identify as a non-conformist, among other things. The first time i deliberated the word conformist was at a university information session. The recruitment officer asked me to stand up and tell everyone the story of how i came to apply to the school and what the application process was like because i had already been accepted to the university.

I remember feeling like being picked on just ruined my chances of fitting in with these other kids. What should have made me proud instead made me feel different and wierd, something i really didn't want because i was already a loner. People tell me that i spoke well that day but honestly, i did terrible. I was so worried about whether or not i would still relate to my peers that i was not focused on communicating properly. Silly, isn't it? After that session i never made friends with any of my agemates so i decided to stay and chat with the organisers like a proper weirdo and I actually made friends with all of them. One of them told me that he remembered me from last year, but with different hair( i had just got my dreadlocks done) and i replied that last year i was still a conformist.

And that's when it hit me. Conformist. I have never been able to fully become part of a group because i am unable to conform. I am interested and good at( ha!) so many things that i cannot simply say i am a writer or poet or feminist. I also like dancing and singing and i happen to be decent at them so cutting them out of my bio would be playing myself big time. I don't know how to fully become something to the point where we can't separate the Siboe from the role( needless to say that i can't act yeah?). I could not relate to those kids because they were quiet nerds, fully absorbed in their role of being future scholars and i, well i don't even know what i was doing there. I showed up in bright floral pants, and my gravity-disobeying locks and not to mention i came alone unlike the jeans and t-shirt clad kids who had come in groups as schoolmates.

I should have expected to be outside their circles but there is this part of me that craves human attention like mad. If you're the praying kind, please pray for me because this part is actually holding me back from my destiny. This is the part that thinks that embracing every one of my gifts and not having a singular thing that I'm known for means that i am a commitment-phobe. Or that i have a short-attention span and maybe it's right but.....you know what? Nevermind it's wrong. Siboe is my identity. Not bookworm, not writer, not volunteer and not Christian. Neither is it Zimbabwean, Ndebele, girl, African nor blogger. Yes, these things are me but on their own they cannot complete Siboe. All my gifts and characteristics work together to make me, therefore, i do not have to conform to any one of them. I am allowed to tick as many boxes as i want.

Labels are okay, i guess, if you're trying to build a brand or sell something because you want us to associate you with a certain product but i remember that i stopped doing poetry in High School because everyone started calling me "the poet" and i just couldn't handle not being Siboe anymore.

My individuality is that important. Or maybe that dark voice in my head was right and i just couldn't handle the commitment. I'll unpack that on another day but this is all that i have for today.

Go home, tell your people you love them and be yourself.