Why I Changed My First Name

As my name started to slip, I imagined it like a sunny-side-up egg slithering down the face of a refrigerator door. "How did that egg get up there?" I wondered. And yet, there it went, an exclamation point with a golden tail.

"Chelsey?" "Kelsy?" These misspellings and misnamings once drove me wild. Now the hot prick energy that previously arose within me and politely insisted on the correct lay limp. "Yep," I'd say to the barista scribbling the cup or the volunteer coordinator requesting my phone number. But it wasn't only people who didn't know me who were impacted by the errant egg. I watched friends I've known for years reach for something once so familiar and come up empty. In these moments, a settled spaciousness arrived to meet their mortification. "I know your name!" they'd say. "I swear, I still have baby brain."

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