A Rose By Any Other Name

I love my name. I love that it's mine, mostly. I do happen to think I have a pretty name, but I love it most when I hear it.

Have you ever noticed that every person says your name differently? People who don't know you well have a certain hesitation. There is distance. But those who know you, when they say your name, it's as if they are claiming you somehow. "Yup, I know her. That's Nina." And I'm normally not a fan of people claiming ownership, but this is the one instance when I like to hear that degree of familiarity.

I also love nicknames. Some of my friends actually call me by my adopted pen name, Nina. It's a little bit different because that is a nickname I gave to myself, but those who use this nickname still made it their own. And some of my friends never picked it up because they came up with other nicknames for me. Some of my friends don't have any nicknames for me, and neither do most of my family members. I guess it's not really the specific name that matters, whether it is the name on my birth certificate or some variation or a nickname that I earned somehow. Those are all my name, my identity.

And when someone I know calls my name, for a split second I feel very certain that I belong.