New Name

Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
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I... What? What on earth kind of silly question is this?

Okay, fine, so maybe there are people out there who don't have nicknames that have become so ingrained into their own self identity that they use those nicknames instead of their real names. Maybe, there are people out there who hate their real names badly enough that they want to use another one. Maybe there are people out there who have a fantasy self that they want to live out for a single day. I am not one of those people.

I introduce myself to strangers as "tess". Sure, it's not my real name (at the moment anyway -- it will be my legal middle name soon enough -- long story.), but it's a nickname that so many friends call me, and have called me for so long, that it's just sort of what I think of my name being. The only people who call me by my given name are people who have known me for longer than that nickname has been around -- mostly family, and friends who are so close and so long lived as to be as good (or better than) as family. Even M doesn't call me by my given name, and we've been together for 6 years now.

And this nickname of mine, properly spelled in the lower-case despite legal documents refusing to recognize that peculiarity, is even more the real me than my given name. Again, a long story. But it was an organic process, not just something picked out of thin air by me that I propagated the use of. It just sort of, well, happened. And I like it. So I can't really think of any other name I'd rather use than the one I already do. It has meaning to me -- much more meaning than the one my parents gave me -- and makes me smile to hear it used because it reminds me of that meaning every time.