This is a piece that I wrote for our school's student publication, the DockuNet. I really do love it though, and still fully believe these things!
Like many other theater fanatics, I packed into a large theater on Christmas evening to watch the beloved classic, Les Miserables. I loved it. It’s in situations such as these that I wish the English language had more versions of the word love so that I could express my enthusiasm accurately. I adored it. Warning: this article contains a number of spoilers!
Among the numerous themes in the movie, all equally meaningful, was the concept of identity and self. Jean Valjean, the story’s protagonist, served 19 years of hard labor as punishment for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry sister and her child. When his jail sentence is up, the inspector, Javert, comes to explain the conditions of his parole and, frankly, to intimidate and belittle him. Javert refers to Val Jean as 24601, his identity as a prisoner, and Valjean responds, “No! My name is Jean Valjean.” It is the beginning of a long journey for Valjean to attempt to erase his identity of a dangerous convict and become a respected man once again.
Once released, Valjean finds it impossible to secure a job and a home because everyone knows he was a prisoner and shuns him. The only person who shows him trust and kindness, a priest, is the same person he steals from in order to survive. This priest shows him forgiveness and grants him amnesty on the conditions that he take the silver and use it to become an honest man.
This act of grace and kindness causes Valjean to reconsider everything that he is. In his soliloquy, “What Have I Done,” he sings, “They gave me a number and murdered Valjean when they chained me and left me for dead, just for stealing a mouthful of bread. Yet why did I allow that man to touch my soul and teach me love? He treated me like any other. He gave me his trust, he called me his brother… He told me that I have a soul… And I stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin, I’ll escape now from the world, from the world of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean is nothing now, another story must begin!” And with this song, he tears up his parole papers, and officially becomes a new man, making Jean Valjean, prisoner 24601, disappear, for what he thought was forever. He becomes a new man, an honest, benevolent, kind man.
Later though, his identity as 24601 returns to haunt him as he again comes face to face with Inspector Javert. Valjean learns though that Javert has arrested another man who he thinks is 24061, and this innocent man will be sentenced to the hard labor that belongs to Valjean. Again, Valjean must confront the question, Who am I? Am I a man that can allow this to happen? Am I a man that deserves punishment for creating a better life? In the song, “Who am I,” he asks, “Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery, pretend I do not feel his agony? My soul belongs to God I know, I made that bargain long ago, he gave me hope when hope was gone, he gave me strength to carry on. Who am I? I’m Jean Valjean. Who am I? 24601.”
This is what was fresh in my mind as I listened to Robin Dean return to speak in Chapel the day we returned from winter break. One of her “epiphanies” after leaving this place was about the way that we allow ourselves and others to limit and define people, and especially how much this occurs in high school. She isso right, and I’ve been looking around lately and noticing all the labels and lies that we allow to define who we are and what we do. Labels aren’t always negative though. Sometimes we think they help explain who we are: I’m a theater kid, I play sports, I sing, I’m good at school. These are all valid talents, but the problem in turning them into labels is that suddenly they become walls that keep us back. They separate us from one another. They keep us from discovering new gifts and talents.
When I was in elementary school, I played sports, numerous sports. I played soccer and softball and did gymnastics. For me, it was always more about the social aspect of the sports, not the love of the game or drive to win. When I reached middle school I discovered that at my large public school, I couldn’t dabble in everything. I had to pick an area and focus on it in order to thrive. I had to be the best at something to have a place. So I gave up sports quite willingly and became involved in organized theater and music. I found my love for singing, and discovered that I had a talent for it. I made the cut for various groups and enjoyed building relationships in these new groups of people. I willingly labeled myself as a “theater kid” and “choir kid” and that was that.
Labels are sometimes like a safety blanket. We can wrap ourselves in them and feel secure and protected when in reality there is nothing standing between us and the things of which we are afraid. We think that labels equal belonging, but it’s not always true. We think that labels give us acceptance and confidence, but they don’t. Regardless of what we label ourselves, the fears are just as real. Labels aren’t strong enough to hold back our fears of rejection and loneliness and brokenness. Labeling yourself as perfect doesn’t mean you actually are.
When I transfered to Dock as a sophomore, I found that things were a lot different socially. There was no group of “theater kids” for me to belong to. Being into choir didn’t grant me access into any special group – everybody sang around here. My labels didn’t do me any good, so I dropped them. During the last three years, I’ve picked up and dropped a number of labels, some I like; some I hate. I’ve watched others pick up the labels that I dropped and cling to them for dear life. It makes me jealous and sad that I chose to give up those labels, but ultimately I’m on a journey towards allowing myself the freedom to be who I am without limiting myself with these definitions of what I’m good at, what I can do, and who I can be friends with.
Because I haven’t done sports in so long, I’ve often allowed myself to take on the label of un-athletic. For sure, I am out of practice at least, and when playing soccer for example, with people who have played all their lives, I certainly can’t compare, but I realized again recently that I’m far from being un-athletic. On a recent youth retreat, we were playing volleyball, and one of my friends commented, “Wow, you’re actually not bad at this.” The year before I had allowed that label to define me so much and people to joke about me being so unskilled, that I chose not to play, or got anxious and played badly when I did jump in. Finally this year, with just me and a couple friends and a bunch of freshmen that I didn’t know, I just played and it turns out that I can play. As I look back on my life I see, over and over again, opportunities where I chose to sit out and watch because I thought I couldn’t play. I see soccer games with Touring Choir, in Europe and in Ohio, where I chose to sit and watch. I see Staff In Training games at Spruce Lake where I chose not to play volleyball or compete with my tent of 12-year old girls in floor hockey because I thought I couldn’t play. I see sophomore gym where I would get so anxious because I didn’t know anybody and I was forced to bare my poor unathletic self to these strangers. I see so much wasted energy and untapped joy. All this time, I could’ve played, but I allowed others to label me because I followed one path and not another.
I remember talking to my mom last year about a frustration with Advanced Math and just saying, “I am so not a math person!” She pointed out to me that I’ve never done badly in math. I’ve always gotten A’s, always understood it – I just often don’t enjoy it. There’s a difference. I labeled myself and it definitely affected the way that I acted. It affected the attitude that I brought to math and affected my reactions to frustration and not understanding something.
We live in a world that is constantly trying to label us, define us, box us in, limit us. The world says, “This is who you are. Now stand here, don’t change and don’t move.” And what is the worst part? The worst part is that we willingly agree and stand where we belong. Then we stay there, and we look around and see others standing in their corners, and somehow they just seem too far away… too far to talk to or laugh with or be friends with. We all spend our lives looking around at people we could and would be friends with, if we just had more in common, and we never make a move. Like obedient children, we stand in our corner and stay comfortable. Meanwhile, the entire beautiful and precious world is happening just outside of our corner.
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