I’ve changed my first and last names three times each…Wild, I am.
Okay, so I realize I can start my story where-ever I want in this blog…my intention is to release and help someone else if I’m able. Today, I share the story of changing my name in order to change the way I saw myself. It worked…
The first time I changed my name I was 12 years old. I took my first name and middle name initials and had a nick name. I was a tomb-boy in the the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. My initials are androgynous look/sound kinda badass…But the reason I first changed my name was because I never wanted to hear my name said the way my parents had for all the young years of my life. I never wanted to be that child again. Changing my name in middle school gave me some power.
Next name change happened legally. I turned 18, and dropped the last name my parents had given me. I became two names, my first and middle birth names. I had stopped being an acronym. About 10 years later I was married and changed my name once more. Three first names and three last names.
I changed my name to change how I saw myself and what I felt I was capable of doing. My family history was one of so much ignorance and abuse. I was born determined to become someone different than my family. There was no way I would repeat that legacy.
Since then, I am divorced and a single mother of one daughter. I am truly proud of the human I am practicing to be every day. Despite my imperfections, I know, I am here and I am doing the best to be the woman I dream to be. This woman must be loved no matter her name or place in any society, and I am a woman who loves and meets people just where they are as they are.
Each day I set out to be kind and exercise my passion to inspire love. Why…because if not me then who? If not now then when?
I’ve changed my name to become who I believe I am and release the old versions of me… Mr. Wild is my neighbor I met one day and made him laugh when I asked, did you change your name to become Mr.Wild? He laughed and said, no I was born Wild.We laughed when I said, Me too! But I won’t be changing my name for quite a while…Changing my name gave me power to grow into the human I am. I say change your name if your need to reset how you see yourself. It works…I’ll find sources to prove this fact.
