Look, I went to Vista too! (for two days... shh..)

Sydny Fujita
August 26, 2007
English 10A

About twenty-five years ago, a name was chosen, and I was born and given to it. I don’t know how or why my parents picked that particular name, but it had nothing to do with me. It served its purpose, more or less. I knew when people were talking to me. I could identify myself on my homework papers. But it always fit like an uncomfortable shoe, too big in some places, too small in others. When someone called my name, there was always a bit of a delay before I realized that yes, this person meant me.

Thirteen years later, I chose a new name. The name I took belonged to a horse I rode once in a park. I didn’t initially intend to keep it, but after a while, I realized that it seemed to fit. That in my own mind, this was something I could call myself. This was a strange realization to me, who had always to myself been the thinker, the knower, the one who is me, without any other label. To name something is to give it power; to name something is to gain power over it. What then of naming myself?

I will be twenty six next year. I wonder if I will pick a new name for the next thirteen years of my life. I wonder what it will be.


(The assignment was "write something about your name." This is the only homework I've done in the last 3 and a half years hehe.)