No 2: CONSEQUENCES OF A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH A LABEL MAKER
PHOTO BY EMMA GREALLY
EMMA GREALLY
Along with her deep brown eyes, unfortunate height, and night owl tendencies, I inherited my mother’s affinity for organization, labels, and systems. From age five, the top right corners of my preschool workbooks were labeled with a custom Emma Greally, 4PreK sticker. My young and malleable mind viewed this as the norm and was utterly shocked when my friends wrote in their own names or, even worse, had no name on their take-home spelling books. Don’t get me wrong, I was by no means forced into this method of thinking; I loved my mom’s label maker: the smooth plastic curves, the faded rubber keys, the bright green button to cut the end of the label, the sound of the clunky hand-held machine spitting the jet black ink on the white roll of fresh labels, feeling the click that vibrated throughout the label maker when I cut the label. I never realized quite how much this source of joy would pervade and regulate my life.
Age 4: Testing and labeling every light in our new house with my mom
My family and I moved into our current house in July 2007, the summer after my younger brother was born. New beginnings, new opportunities, new labels. After shoving through the front door that was too heavy for me to open on my own until I was nine, the first thing I did was pick my room (the one with the butterfly blankets and twin beds, obviously). The second was exploring around corners and behind doors in search of every light switch in the house and labeling the areas that those specific sets of LED’s illuminated. Center Ceiling, Dining Room, Mantle, Sink Lights, Shower Light, Pool Table Room, Janice’s Office. However, the labels didn’t stop there. We had labels in our cupboards for salad plates and champagne glasses and coffee mugs and teapots and rice bowls. We had labels on our bookshelves and tape drawer and key container and snack cupboard and mudroom’s shoe drawers. Many say that a house is not a home without a dog, or faith, or a fully stocked kitchen, but I would argue that a house is not a home without labeled light switches.
Age 12: Having a designated partner for all projects in my Spanish class because neither of us could bear working with someone who didn’t share our method of thinking
In 7th grade, I was pretty certain I was the coolest kid in school. Come on, an avid member of WordMasters, frequent spelling bee participant, and owner of a bright purple cross-body zip-up binder? Who wouldn’t worship the ground I walked on? It may come as no surprise from the various activities that filled my schedule, but I loved middle school. I loved the individual folders on the desktop of my loaner Macbook Air that I color-coordinated for each class. I loved walking down the stairs to lunch to the same rhythm as my friends. Most of all, I loved my Spanish 4 DLI Honors class, and during every 4B class period, my best friend and I were inseparable. We worked together on every posterboard, homework set, and Spanish video project. Besides being friends for five years, the thing that brought us together was our shared mindset surrounding the work we submitted to Maestra Muñoz. I always took the lead on our projects, and my friend would help out along the way. Even when I was young, I had an internal need to control any project I was involved in; not in an overbearing way, but simply because I was prepared to put in 99% of the work because I was a red-pen wielding perfectionist. The one time my friend was out of town for a week, and I had to be partnered with someone else, was a nightmare; I redid our entire project on my own the night before it was due because I could not handle the way she had cut the construction paper haphazardly and pasted it on the board. I vowed from that moment on that I must always have some sort of control over anything that I was involved in. I needed a system, and in this case, my system was color coordinating a presentation on our future dream house with three shades of purple construction paper.
Age 14: Only hanging up the phone when the minutes are a multiple of 5 (unless the minutes are 25 or 55, because multiples of 30 have superiority)
The first boyfriend, never quite as romantic as the portrayals in Disney movies and always more awkward in-person interactions than anticipated, and my case was no different. I was asked out by my 8th-grade crush. I fell for his Australian accent, and that was pretty much it, so I relished the time we spent on the phone or over FaceTime, talking about friends, living in Park City, or our shared science teacher. When it came time to hang up, I refused to leave at 1:23, or 4:48, or 9:12. I liked following a schedule; it made me feel in control, and nothing is more important than keeping scheduled events planned with the minutes in multiples of five. This irrational habit always begets odd looks and questions from my friends and family members on the phone, but, to me, this was more than a habit: it felt like a necessity.
Age 16: Having a panic attack when I signed up for two science classes because my science binder has always been green
In my junior year, I decided to double up on science courses. Albeit an odd decision, considering I plan to study international relations and philosophy in college, I was excited to continue my STEM pursuits in AP Chemistry and AP Environmental Science. However, when it came time for my annual trip to Staples and color coordinating my Canvas courses, I realized I had made a dire mistake. Every year since elementary school, the colors of my courses had always been red for English, yellow for Spanish, orange for History, blue for Math, and, most importantly, green for Science. When my 11th-grade course schedule was finally released, my binder color system I were shook to the core. This seemingly trivial breaking of my standard triggered my anxiety, and the daily reminders on my Canvas home screen of my inability to maintain consistency in school haunted me for months and resulted in me changing my home screen from card view to list view.
Age 16: Stress-reorganizing and relabeling the snack cupboard the night before my SAT
After thirty Saturday mornings consisting of a full-length practice SAT and an hour-long post-exam review session, it was finally May 7th. I had just taken my AP Chemistry Exam that day, and I was only halfway through AP week, but I could not care less about my APs. The only exam that mattered was my SAT. Growing up, I never had test anxiety. However, I had given up nearly eight months to prepare for this exam, and it would be my last chance to get the score I needed before I would sacrifice my summer to take yet another practice test every weekend. For hours, I was physically unable to stay still. The countless hypothetical worst-case scenarios that had been racing around my mind for the entire day nearly culminated in a full-on breakdown, but I wouldn’t allow myself to do so. Instead, I did what I always did when I had undirected stress and anxiety: reorganize. The fruit snack packets and granola bars peeking from the snack cupboard had been calling my name for weeks, so what better (and more logical) time to dedicate three hours to clean the cupboards and fridge than the night before the most important test I have taken to date, right?
Age 17: Following my mom’s “Healthy Living” worksheets during COVID, so I was rewarded for “hugging a family member for 8 seconds,” because her New York Times daily briefing told her that fights off depression
I stayed inside. For three and a half months, I stayed in. My grandmother who raised me since I was born had fallen ill to a mysterious gastrointestinal illness and was at our local Park City Hospital. My family abided by a rotating schedule to ensure there was someone there with her in the hospital 24/7 to interpret her thick Japanese accent for the medical staff and make sure she was comfortable. Dad was in charge of days because he worked nights at the hospital, and Mom and Uncle Steve switched off the 7pm-11am shift. Because of this, from September to December 2020, my brother and I did not leave the confines of our home, fearful of possibly catching the deadly virus that would surely push Grandma over the edge.
I Zoomed into classes for 8 hours and spent the next 10 hours of my day hunched over my laptop doing homework. I regularly made Grandma Okayu, a Japanese rice porridge dish she prepared for me when I was sick growing up. I did not notice how I gradually started to sleep through more and more Morning Meetings. I did not notice I lived in the same red zip-up and plaid pajama pants for days at a time. I did not notice I started turning my camera off more and more in classes. I did not notice myself falling deeper into a hole I would not be able to crawl my way out of. I felt like I was stuck in a relentless cycle, but this time, it wasn’t a helpful cycle. I broke my habits which I scrupulously attended to; I was lost. Every time I silenced my alarm, procrastinated filling out my daily journal wellness, and zoned out watching New Girl in 75-minute-long blocks instead of religiously taking lecture notes, were signals of my drifting father away from the system I had worked so hard to establish.
Luckily, my mom noticed the change in my character. She knows me better than anyone and understands my obsession with lists; after all, she is who I got it from. Her morning regimen includes reading the New York Times daily briefings, and she discovered that hugging someone for 8 seconds scientifically reduces the risk of depression. She printed Healthy Living checklists and taped them on the fridge, which included hugging a family member for 8 seconds, exercising, spending time outside, etc., because nothing motivates me more than the gratification I derive from crossing something off a list. Those months took away a part of me and have still never given it back, but the simple system my mom established was a small step in the right direction.
At the end of the day, I knew where my bedroom light was regardless of the label. I got A’s on the Spanish projects with randomly assigned partners. My days weren’t ruined when I hung up the phone at 8:18pm. My SAT score wasn’t contingent on an organized snack cupboard. My orange AP Chem binder and green APES folder didn’t cause me to fail the class. The healthy living checklists didn’t resolve the mental health challenges I face.
The same labels that used to reside on the shoe drawers in my family’s mudroom have yellowed over time and eventually fallen off. The faded rectangular outlines, the lighter strips of tan where the adhesive backing ripped off the paint, and the occasional remnants of a “Connor’s Running Shoes” or “Emma’s Winter Boots” in the back corner of a drawer are reminders of the mindset I work to grow out of every day.
I am beginning to understand that slapping a label on something or categorizing what I cannot understand into a system will not resolve underlying issues at the core of my anxieties. The sooner I can accept the world as it is and realize what I can and cannot control are moments that bring me closer to appreciating my trusty label maker instead of relying on it.
