What's in a name

When I told him my name I didn't see any reaction in his face, not one which I was used to anyway.  No look of confusion or struggle or annoyance.  His reaction was of a matter of fact as he had heard my name a thousand times before.  He simply and happily repeated my name with ease and did so exactly how it was meant to sound.  The feeling that those ten seconds of interaction gave me was so overwhelming that it brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart, which later gave way to sadness and longing.  He was just an old jeweler at a small store taking my name down for an order I was putting in.  He wrote down my name without asking me how to spell it, without a hint of trouble, he just knew.  What a pleasant feeling I had at that moment, what a sense of comfort, a sense of... belonging.  I had said my name to him and he did not ask me any questions about it.  He knew it, he knew where it was from, he knew how to say it, he knew it's meaning, he knew how to spell it.  And I did not have to explain any of that to him, other than what my name was! I felt so connected to him at that moment that I forgot he was a stranger to me and I a stranger to him.  

Ever since I was twelve years old I dreaded the moment when someone asked me what my name was.  From teachers who found it a nuisance to have to pronounce it to office receptionists to sales clerks to baristas who butchered it without caring.  The back and forth that followed, how I had to repeat it a few times, say it slowly and not exactly how it was meant to sound, how I had to spell it slowly and multiple times.  How I had to answer a series of questions about it to the curious ones.  Where was it from? What did it mean? And the one that I hated the most, Do I have a nickname that they could use instead? or even worse, can they give me a nickname? Some people would just not even bother and call me by my last name instead, and without even a prefix in front of it.

I guess I could have changed my name or given myself that highly demanded nickname everyone was desperately asking for and make everyone's life easier.  Sure, I gave in and became "Sherri" or "Jackie" at times but that was mostly when I was interacting with someone who I'd never see again like when picking up my coffee or ordering Chinese food.  Neither myself or the busy delivery guy had time for the dull and annoying name dance.  But when I met someone who would be using my name more than once to address me I tortured them with the real one.  Why did I always refuse to make the change? Was is pride? Stubbornness? Was it to keep the only connection I had to my origins? Maybe it was because my name was who I was.  It was what my mom and dad called me from day one of my life, it was what my first friends called me.  It was one of the first things I learned how to write which I wrote on top of every drawing I did as a little girl and every assignment I completed in elementary school.  It was on all my hard earned degrees! Calling myself anything else would have made me an imposter.  I guess I preferred to deal with the struggles of keeping it rather than changing it to a something else which would make me a stranger to myself. 

The struggle with my name became a norm to me.  It wasn't until I was in my native land for a visit and came across people who I had never met that could pronounce my name perfectly and had no questions about it.  I was surprised at myself by the way I reacted to it with such intense emotions.  It was then that I thought about how even those who had known me for years and called me by my name never really said it right, never said it with ease.  I was faced with some questions of my own,  could I ever feel close, really close, to someone who can't say my name right, the way it was meant to be said? That's not fair to those who try so hard to understand and pronounce it.  Do I really feel closer to this man in the jewelry store taking my name down for an order than to a colleague of many years who I've shared so much with just because he knows of my name and pronounces it right? Could this be the reason why all the people who I have chosen to be friends with are native to my name?  Would this be why I never even imagined marrying a man who was not native to my name?  To think, being married to someone who doesn't say your name exactly the way your parents intended for it to be said! 

This could be called "the diary of an immigrant"as I'm sure it isn't specific to just me.  It's an identity crisis, the feeling of loss and longing and belonging.  The struggle of fighting to keep a shred of who you are.  The man in the jewelry store could say my name perfectly and beautifully.  He knew what it meant and it didn't make him think twice about the kind of person I was.  It wasn't odd or exotic to him, it didn't bother him nor did it have him make assumptions about me.  He made me feel at home, yet not a home that I had known for decades, not a home which would ever really be home to me.