Name tags

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” -Shakespeare

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
What name is true when others label you?

I used to believe that others knew me better than I knew myself. The words they used to call me by, their opinions freely shared, spoke truths beyond my understanding of who and what I was.

For years I let them cover me like nametags peeled from paper, stuck like glue written down in permanent ink, these words marked my soul forever. Who am I? What am I? I’d better listen closely for I’m not sure I know the answer.

Shy, misunderstood, timid and unnoticed. Hidden in my mother’s skirts, afraid of the worlds’ vision. A child emerging into youth gangly, awkward and gross. Braces and high waters, growing pains and short shirts. How does anyone move through this stage without a pimpled face? Insecurity melted any chance I had of growing past a crush in my English class.

Shy and timid and so naive, what on earth could I learn in college? Pressure to be an adult and now I’m called a “young woman”. Labels never shed or changed, just thicker levels of stickers covered me in their layers. Insecurity lingered burried by a more acceptable name like silly aloofness. Scared, timid and overly cautious, unable to remove the label on my forehead announcing to the world that my name was clearly foolish. Everyone knows that I don’t know what I’m doing.

Long term relationships held power to define the spaces that felt new and foreign, too scary to name myself I eagerly accepted all the names which he created. Please tell me who it is you see, do you want me or her? Please define and confirm for I’m still not sure, am I me…or am I her?

Weak and scared, incapable. Awkward, young and dull. Naive, unalluring, can’t I just be better? Unattractive, damaged, unworthy of love and affection. Try harder not to be the girl who is untouchable, sad and lonely. Who would ever want a girl like her, she’s just so utterly boring. Excel to success everyone is looking, perfection is your mission. Disappointing girl, keep trying then, just fake it till you make it.

These name tags I peeled from their sturdy backing to adorn my skin forever inked in, I didn’t realize their poison. I drank them in so readily, quite desperate to belong. Perspective skewed from the outside in, I had no filter no source to know truth from within, no balance no counter to question and ponder, am I this girl? Do I know her at all? Are these lies or truth I never thought to know what belongs and what can come off.

Peeling layers off of skin is quite painful when it’s slow. The work to find out what is real hurts worse then a bandaid ripping off. It feels more like a burn unsoothed by salve, left chapped, raw, naked and cold exposed to the wind. Vulnerable to the fear of not knowing who I am. Without a name without labels I’m a nameless “Jane Doe”, identity unknown. A girl on the street, alone and terrified of all the things she could be.

In the absence of voices yelling shame, bitterness, hate and negatives I could hear in the silence nothing more than the pitter pat of my feet as I walked to a tree and sat underneath to ponder and question what is it that’s me, really really me, what am I called?

I picked up my marker and tentatively wrote all the things I could think up to call myself by, trying them on, they all felt miss sized not fitting right and sounding stuck on my tongue. It took me a while to work past the fear, to call myself things that rang with some cheer. I found worth and value as I looked at myself. Kindness and joy coupled uncertaintly with integrity and grit. That seemed hard to write down without the shadow of pride sneaking up from the old to rob me of the right to be confident and strong, and able to define myself as I see fit for who I am and what I still long to be.

The names I wrote down on those tags are all me, but I chose this time not to wear them as skin. I know what I am in the actions I live, I don’t need them to stick on the outside of my skin. They shine out of my face because they found their place filling from within.

I’m still learning to evaluate and accept words from others and how they might fit. Do they ring true, are they false? Are they old or so new I haven’t grown into to them yet? I need experience and time to trust that I’ve made friendships who know the value of a word and I trust them to help me evaluate the names to shed and the ones to keep.

I know who I am, but I’m still evolving, my names keep changing, adding. So many spaces I still struggle to see, buried beneath old stickers that wreek they need air to breath before they can heal from the past. I’m trusting others to write with their own markers the words that they feel I should know about myself. It’s unnerving, scary and often so funny to hear friends share their nicknames for me, learning I’m “colorful” is new and a weird one, it bounces around with laughter I’m not sure where it lives.

Perhaps a rose by any name would still smell so sweet, but I wonder would it know its own softness or believe in its beauty? Would it revel in its delicious scent, or understand its purpose as a symbol of romance if it wore a name tag that permanently inked it as “Thorn”? What’s in a name, do you know your own?