Lutalicaloo-tal-i-kuh

n. The sense that you're more than the categories society puts you in. You tell the world who you are in a million ways. But this world has you pegged. Soon after you were born, you were put in a box with a label slapped on it.

You learned to make yourself comfortable, positioning yourself in relation to others' expectations. You tried repackaging your identity until you felt you belonged. But there's a part of you that never found a home, rattling around in categories that never did you justice.

Why do we sort ourselves into categories? Maybe it's the only way to stay sane among strangers. We put people in boxes to get on with our day, afraid that if nothing contained us, we'd melt into the air.

What would happen if these boxes fell apart? If we wrote our identities by hand, in our own words. Meeting each other as we are, asking "What is it like being you?"—while admitting we don't know. Maybe our grandchildren will hear our stories and struggle to believe it happened at all.