A short poem for people who refuse to fit neatly in the dropdown menu.

At some point someone will ask what you do and you will feel your whole soul reach for a chair. [please, not this again] Because the honest answer is rarely tidy. It is not always Founder. Coach. Consultant. Strategist. Speaker. Writer. Mother. Person Who Has Opinions About Fonts. Though, yes. Unfortunately. All of those. The truth is usually more inconvenient. I am the thing that keeps becoming after the label has already been printed. I am the sentence that ruins the form. I am the category that requires an “other” box and then immediately outgrows it. [classic] Some people call this inconsistency. I prefer evidence of life. Because a self that can be named too quickly might be a self that has stopped listening. There is a quiddity to it, some small stubborn whatness that refuses to be filed correctly. [rude little essence] And maybe self-definition has always been a little apophatic: not this, not that, not the title they understood before you finished speaking. Not the bio. Not the niche. Not the neat little sentence with its shoes tied. So let the introduction wobble. Let the title arrive late. Let the niche panic quietly in the corner with its clipboard. You are allowed to be clear without being containable. You are allowed to be known without being reduced. You are allowed to become so honestly that the old introduction no longer recognizes you. And when someone asks what you do, you can smile and give them the closest true thing. Not the whole thing. Never the whole thing. The whole thing is still moving.