CALL IT TEENAGE YEARS OR JUST PLAIN “INSECURITIES”
I wonder how many of us grew up not liking the names that we we’re given? Yes, I was one of them. I was named Elissa. I remember my teachers always mispronounced my name, the first day of school, as they did their roll calls. As I got older and I entered junior high school (now living in Great Neck, Long Island) I signed in as Lisa, a name I really, really liked. I’ve never changed my name officially. Elissa still appears on my driver’s license and passport, so in some ways I’m still attached (or stuck) to my name. It all depends on how one looks at it.
With grown up “securities”, I now see it all so different. Why did I sweat the small stuff? Just being a teenager, I guess is not always easy. Yet at least, I ended up with a name that I liked.
The next problem was growing up with curly, frizzy hair. This was definitely the bigger of the two. As I mentioned before this was not” in” and although, I today see some curly hair I like (not mine), I now have it professionally straightened. I believe in my heart that my life would have been different, if I would have been born with beautiful straight shiny hair. It was the sixties, the time of “Hair “the show, the music, the movie. Mod Squad starring Peggy Lipton, Peyton Place with Mia Farrow was what was true of the times. If I get to choose in my next life I definitely want to be born with straight hair and while I asking for it being 5’7” wouldn’t be bad either.
Growing up for me was a difficult time; my insecurities certainly outweighed my securities. Could I be the only one in my generation to have felt like that? Or could I have been filled with so many more insecurities? Did it come from growing up in a town that somehow I did not feel that I belonged? Could it have been the fault of my mother?
I know differently now. I do believe that a parent does try to do the very best for their child and to build a strong base for one to grow in. I know in my heart that I tried very hard to do that for Logan. I now just have to hope that Logan believes that also.
I ask, was it just being insecure or was it those teenage years? Was it me fighting a relationship with my mom or was it something to do with “Freud “and toilet training, so to speak?
I ask, was it just being insecure or was it those teenage years? Was it me fighting a relationship with my mom or was it something to do with “Freud “and toilet training, so to speak?
I think we all wish we could pick our own names. I changed the spelling of mine in middle school to Judi just to be different from all the other Judy's. Then a science teacher called me Jud I, and I went back to using the y. When I named my first son Derek, I thought that was unusual, but as it turned out there were 2 Derek's on the basketball team in high school, so to distinguish them, mine became DJ and it stuck and today everyone but me calls him DJ. When I was at a game he was coaching and sitting with the players families I told some stories about Derek and they finally said, "Who is Derek?" I had to tell them it was Coach DJ. My mom wished her parents had named her the middle name Ladena instead of Velma, but grandpa said he couldn't remember that and would just call her Dang it. So Velma it was.
ReplyDeleteI'd trade my fine straight blonde hair with you for the curly locks any old day. I use to perm mind to look like yours does in the pictures, but with thyroid problem I can't anymore. I guess we always want what we don't have, and that's why so many men cheat on their wives, and single women go after married man (yes, I lost my first husband after 31 years of marriage to a single woman - Im biased there.)