I grew up ‘Erica Lauren Colbenson’, but my family called me ‘Emma’ or ‘M’ for short. The nickname was given to me by my grandmother who has four daughters and an array of granddaughters. When angry, she would yell at us from the bottom of the stairs; “Mary, Liz, Annette, Judy, Jessica, Erica…God damnit!” We referred to it as “role call”.
One particular evening she yelled at me to go pick up my back pack and mess from the kitchen table. Insert role call here. Finally flabbergasted, she said, “For Christs’ sake, your name is Emma.” It stuck. Everyone in my family calls me Emma. It doesn’t help with role call; if anything, it makes it longer. But it makes me feel special. And the best part is, I can always tell when I’m in trouble. With “Emma”, I’m safe. With “Erica Lauren”, I’m not so safe.
My name also says, “Erica Colbenson is NOT a daddy’s girl.” My father’s name is a part of who I am, but that’s all he has ever given me. I’ve considered changing my name to “Erica St. James” or “Erica Lauren” and just not have a middle name. But changing my name does not change me identity. It does not change my lifeline or my past. And it certainly does not give me my father back. My name represents everything that I am and everything I’m not. Everything I have and everything I never had.
I think you definitely need to expand on all three paragraphs. You have three different ideas here, the last one being the least related. You introduced a brand new idea seemingly out of nowhere. Perhaps you could start with the third paragraph and make a clearer link to the other two to give this piece more focus.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great skeleton for expansion. The role call is a great image and I would love to hear the full situation surrounding one.
ReplyDelete