Earl, of course, is not her real name. My beautiful, quirky child has simply all but stopped responding to her real name, so my mother and I have started following her unanswered-real-name with, “Earl!” She immediately pivots, squares her shoulders, huffs, and responds. She answers simply to ward off embarrassment, but, hey, it works. Most of the time.
The past few days, she’s insisted on being called “Bella” (When she remembers, that is. She is, after all, my child who oh hey look something shiny! Ahem.). The first time she announced this recent name change, I asked why that particular name. “You have four perfectly good names with all kinds of nicknames associated with them. Why BELLA?” She shrugged and said she feels pretty like a “Bella.”
Well, okay, then. I can’t argue with that, Earl…er…Bella.
Nor can I really fuss. For years in college, I went by one of my middle names. No, not “Amanda” which would have be easy. I’ve never been an easy kind of girl. Besides, there were 1.6 billion Amandas and Mandys in my school growing up. No, I went by my other middle name, “True.” It’s a family surname, and I lay all the blame for my name change on my grandmother who, in a senile moment years before the onset of dementia, randomly wondered aloud why I’d never been asked to be called “True.”
Seeing as I’d never asked to be called anything but my actual name (which I have always disliked), I didn’t have an answer, but a change sounded good. I went for it. Very few people ever really latched on to the idea, but I liked it. I liked the opportunity it gave me to reinvent myself a bit. And I liked the “Trubie” nickname that went along with it. I’ve never liked any nicknames, aside from the obvious (hello, blog name) for my first name, but True had “Trubie” and “Trubes” and “Troubador” and “T” and “False,” which is all one particular philosophy professor would call me. Not that I ever really wanted to adopt that one, but I definitely stood out! And I found myself many times wondering why I hadn’t insisted on the unique name earlier. I’d have rocked that name in high school.
Fine. High school still would have sucked, but let me have my little delusion, ‘kay?
I purposely gave my child names I wouldn’t mind using if she ever decided to up and switch to another built-in option. I know what it’s like to be stuck with a name and nicknames you hate (call me Susie-Q and you are dead to me), so I’m prepared if she wants a little change down the line. For now, though, I’ll torment her with “Earl” and indulge her with “Bella” when she insists. It means she’s trying to figure out who she is. She’s working out the bugs in her program long before I did, and I can’t help but admire and encourage that.
It’s frightening sometimes to look at Earl and realize I’m raising a new little, hopefully improved and less-buggy version of myself. Only my mother never had to call me “Harvey” in public to get my attention.
Thank God for small favors.
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