Lutallica - Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Etymology

From Serbo-Croatian lútalica, "wanderer."

TRANSCRIPT

Lutalica. You tell the world who you are in a million different ways. Some are subtle, some are not.

But it doesn't seem to matter: this world has already got you pegged.

When you were born they put you in a little box, and slapped a label on it. So they could keep things organized, and not have to think about what’s inside.

Over time you learn to make yourself comfortable packaging your identity in different combinations until you feel like you belong, and can wear your labels proudly.

But there’s a part of you that never really found a home rattling around in categories that couldn’t do you justice.

You look around at other people, trying to judge how loosely they fit in their own lives sensing a knot of confusion hidden beneath a name tag.

And you realize we’re still only strangers, who assume we already know what the other is going to say, as if the only thing left to talk about is who belongs in what category and which labels are offensive.

You have to wonder if these boxes are falling apart. If we should be writing our identities by hand, speaking only for ourselves, in our own words, taking our chances out in the open and meet each other as we are, asking: “What is it like being you?”

—and be brave enough to admit that we don’t already know the answer.

Maybe it’ll mean that we’ve finally arrived, just “unpacking the boxes” making ourselves at home.

And maybe we’ll look back and wonder how we managed to live in the same house for so long, and never stop to introduce ourselves.