My true name

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

Growing up, there was always this dissociation between me and the name I’d been given. Like it was nothing more than an alias. A placeholder. Something to call myself until my true name was revealed.

And I never doubted a day would come where my true name would make itself known. I might have had imaginative notions about how that reveal would happen. But I never doubted the day would come, where I would be able to tell the world my true name.

It was why I choose to give myself a penname. So that, no matter what, my writing would remain under the same ‘brand’.

I knew as a teenager what my true name was. But I was afraid to claim it then. That fear remained for a long time, but it is gone now. And I have claimed my true name. Or at least my true first name. Marriage will add to my surname and make me a truer version of myself.