I am taking a leap into something unknown. Usually, I don't like having a tag on me. I remember, in high school, about the various clans: the popular ones, the preppies ones, the sports ones, the geeks ones. I was the outsider. A rock solid outsider. Have been in that category for years. Once, almost at the end of my high school, there was a girl, always dressed up in black. She didn't have any make up. No elaborate goth clothing or mindset.
Once, we were a few students with her. She started to speak about goths. She said there were goth that were just goth for a time period, in their teenage years. There were also more permanent goth. There was the category of goth that will never recognize they are goth, not even by how they clothes themselves. She pointed at me and said I was in that category. I was unhappy by that. I hate being put in a category.
Since then, I recognize she may have been partly right but not totally. I didn't made any conscious choice on being in the goth world. I like a few things that could be considered goth: The Addams Family, old litterature like Anne Ratcliffe books, I like songs like Bauhaus's Bella Lugosi's death. That song is consider goth, I think. But the theme can't be more gothic than anything else. Bella Lugosi is the first actor, on the movie screen, that portrait Dracula, the one from the book, well, the first I know of. Being death as he was famous for his Dracula role is a bit ambiguous. Physical death as he live on the silver screen. I consider that as a eternal life without the body and in cultural archetype is a way to stay alive. In a way, it is gothic.
I am not totally comfortable with the tag of being gothic. I may have been perceived as gothic without admitting it to that girl. But I think it wasn't just that. She didn't had access deep into my soul. She didn't knew me as far as I lived within myself. She saw a part of me for a certain period of time and get her own conclusion from her point of view. Hard to put words on that at that time. Now, with my baggage of experience, I can see what she saw in me. It is just not totally wrong, it is not totally true. So, now, I feel a bit wiser and felt it was time to dig a more deeper. I also stumbled on some information on Asperger and Autism. I know, Asperger is no longer called Asperger. It had been swept into the Autism umbrella. It is partly why I feel that way about being put a tag on me. It can change with time, not just because of studies made by scientists. Words can change a bit with time. It can have some more spin to it. As goth originate in the punk movement.
So, getting tested for the vast spectrum of Autism is a step into the unknow. Of course, there is a chance that I will have a new tag. I will not like it. It will pass better as being a new mask to put on to describe me. It will be another part of me that will explain the past, the present and the future. It will help me understood why I am the way I am. It will be as the word goth that had been put on me by that girl in high school. If I see this girl again, I will be able to say to her: "You put a label on me that many years ago. You may be partly right. But I am not just that. I also have received another label that explain as much as what you saw in me. There are words that may overlap in their meanings."
Because of that incident, I never put label on people. What do we know on how people feel, deep inside. There are part of ourselves that never had chances to show up to the world. I have my fascination with my inspiration. I also wonder how my mind work. Even if I hate having tags on me, sometimes, there is a necessity to have words to describe what we are. It is time to name my beast to shed some light on my past, so I can move forward. Moving forward with new knowledge on myself may help me avoid some painful experiences.
I think it is akin of embarking in any creative process. There is always a part of the unknown. The unknown is always the most frightening part.
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