"Jeannie, I'm looking forward to seeing you at the high school reunion."
I stared at the email knowing the message was for me....yet the name she called me I abandoned just before I left for college.
Unlike most people, I've had several names in my life and lately I've found, thanks to the Internet, I'm even more flexible in what I call myself.
My parents named me Eugenia. From the very first moment I realized that was my name....I refused to accept it. My mother tried convincing me that Eugenia was a royal name.....there was Eugenie, wife of Napoleon and some "European" princess....who my mother lacked details on...except of course...that she was of royal lineage.
Perhaps I could have accepted the exceptional princess route .....but I knew from a very young age....that the real reason my mother named me Eugenia....was not because she thought I was a princess but because my uncle, her youngest brother whom she idolized and considered her best friend, drowned at the age of 16 and I was his memorial. She would often tell me, "You were supposed to be a boy so I could have named you Eugene." But something had gone terribly wrong and I was a girl....and a compromise to my mother's most cherished dream of reincarnating her brother.
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I resented the name....and I resented Eugene for dying and burdening me with a rough masculine gruff sounding title. Sometimes my resentment turned to guilt... I watched my mother and grandmother cry when they talked about him or anything having to do with him.....how could I be so cruel to them and this young teenage boy who had just died? In fact, he had died 8 years before I was born.......but grief in our household never waned for him and mourning him became a full time obsession for both my grandmother and mother.
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The one good thing about the name Eugenia.... was that it was long and cumbersome.... especially if you're calling a kid inside the house from play..... so it was shortened to Genie or Gene for practical purposes.
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I remember my mother introducing me to the kindergarten teacher....Sister Whatever....as "my daughter Eugenia".....but when she left the room....I immediately told Sister, in no uncertain terms, my named was Genie. The teacher and kids called me Genie....but my mother wrote notes about me and addressed me as "Eugenia" in public.....outside of being a memorial....my mother thought the name made me sound like I was above the normal Riff-Raff of the neighborhood....which was something else that was important to her.
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When I took music lessons in grammar school, I told Mrs. Rodgers right away my name was Genie.... not Eugenia......but since I didn't write my name down....Mrs. Rodgers surprised me one week with sheet music just for me....." I dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair." It was some old minstrel music....the words antiquated...."born like a vapor on the summer air...happy as the daisies that dance her way." Now I took full control of my name.......not only in what I wanted to be called but how I wanted it to be spelled...I signed all my school papers and notes as "Jeannie"...and I even had light brown hair.......how perfect could that be?
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Gradually....my mother accepted the new spelling of my name....but my father... till this day....addresses and writes to me as "Genie."
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Senior year in high school....I was part of a group.... from my all girl catholic high school....to travel to Europe as their senior project. There were 12 girls in Italy with one nun as a chaperon. We had fun....some of us had a lot of fun.........when some cute Italian boys stood in the alley outside of my hotel room .....calling out......"Heya blonda, heya Gina....." I took my name to the next phase.....abandoning the childish name of my youth...for the more worldy and exciting name of Gina.....
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I left for college with that new name......no...I wasn't Italian...but that didn't matter....I had matured in my two weeks in Italy....I could see men would be wild about me...and I wanted a name to represent the new vixen in me.
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Unfortunatley, the boys in Nebraska were blind....and didn't see me as a vixen or goddess or anything....but when you start a new life at some far off school and tell everyone your name is Gina....well ....that's what people call you.
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Name challenges continued to plague even after college..... being an only child....I was the last in the family to carry our surname. So when I married.....on the West Coast....at the crest of women hyphenating their names.....that's exactly what I did.....took two names and tried to make it one.......resulting in a legal mouthful that haunts me to this day.
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There isn't a medical system or library system or school system...that hasn't fowled up, messed up....and broken apart my name....which has 4 K's in it......after a few years....I dropped my maiden name....but legally....I must keep the full mouth numbing train of names...starting with Eugenia. Trust me it's a nightmare.....and when I go to a doctor's office or get a new credit card.....I'm always in streamlining mode...."Just call me Gina XXXXX.......that's what I go by." Everyone seems quite relieved.
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The Internet and passwords and ID's gave me another chance to change my name. I could now sign into websites as DorothyParker or HotVixen. I wrote some erotica under the pen name of Candy. Name freedom....the freedom from my name (and myself?).....even found me at the bookstore...I'd swipe people's name tags..... left in storage in the break room when they were not working.... and wear them for a day. There were days I was "Barbie" and "Joe" and "Tim."
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Here in the south, famous for unusual names....(Stone, Steele, boys named Kimberely and Beverly).....it was not inconceivable that I could be called Tim or Joe....perhaps it was short for Timberly or Josephine?........and since I am blond and blue-eyed and have a nice sets of breasts....why not be called Barbie for an afternoon? After all Ken was waiting for me in the pink convertible outside the store in the parking lot.
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I wrote back to the woman organizing the reunion and mentioned that I now go by the name "Gina".....
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"I'll have to get used to that," she said, " I don't know you by any other name than Jeannie."
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Eugenia. Genie. Gene. Jeannie. Gina. Barbie. Candy. Joe. Tim.
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There are people who know me only as one entity/one name......and yet each new situation, each new day....I can choose to be who I want to be ....to people I meet......whether I have changed my name or not.
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It's an interesting thought....and I guess I can be the poster child for people who change their names to reflect change in their life.
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I wonder what my next name will be and what situation will hand me the opportunity to morph again.
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