New Names by Sarah Thomson

Submitted by email by Sarah Thomson for Inspiration Monday: New Names.

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In this life I have been known by many names. My birth name, my nick name, my family name. Then there were other names i was given through familial relationships, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Aunt, Friend. And then, there were the other names I was called, though none were warranted and none were pleasant. These were whore, bitch, and a whole slew of similar and just as derogative names.

But what is in a name? Does it even matter in the end what people called you?

I say it doesn’t. The person I am, or was, wasn’t created by a name. A name is just a bunch of letters, put together in a fashion to label you one thing or another. In a way that is designed to roll off the tongue of the speaker; to summon you perhaps? Or leave you slinking off in fear and shame? Or to lift your spirits and help you soar?

These names, once bothered, but now have faded into the distance. They have no effect on the hear and now, where I am today.

Today I am no-one, or maybe I am everyone. A sum of parts of the many ‘me’s’ that have existed through time. I have borne many names, in many times and in time I will bear more. I have been Slave, I have been Queen, Warrior and Child, I have been Him and I’ve been Her. But today these names belong to no-one, or at least they no longer belong to me.

Yesterday I died. So today I am Ghost or perhaps Spirit or perhaps simply Dead.

I am not dead, I am not living. I have ended yet I am eternal. I am here, I am gone and I am everywhere in between.

Tomorrow, however, I will have new names, as I have so many times before.

Tomorrow, I will be whoever they tell me I am and yesterdays names won’t matter. I will not remember them.

Today I am simply me. And in the end, the name I have when all is stripped away, is the only name that counts.