History of my name

My name is… to be honest, I don’t really even like my name. I hate the way people say it and I hate thinking about it. It’s just so awkward. Aleesha. I don’t like the way it’s spelt and I don’t like the way it sounds. Lately I have been thinking about my name a lot, I always asked my dad how he came up with it but he always says he named me Aleesha because it’s a mix between all my older sisters names. I wish I had my own name, one I didn’t have to share with three different woman in my life but after I really thought about it. Maybe I don’t really hate my name, maybe I just hated it because I hated the way people said it when they’re mad at me. Most of the time I think everyone mad at me, I’m not very good with social cues and I hate that too. I try not to be a hateful person but it’s hard when most of the time I hate myself the most. My name means noble, not noble hero or noble girl, just noble. Why is everything about me just something? It’s never sure what it is, or what it isn’t. Or who it is, who am I if not my name? Who would I be without my name ? I wouldn’t be anything because things that exist without a name aren’t real. Names are important, we are our names.

I hate my name because I don’t know who Aleesha is, I’ve spent all my life coping personalities that I like, coping people so that I can fit in (as a person who’s moved around a lot this is important to me), so I don’t know who Aleesha is. That’s why I ask people, what do you think of me? What kind of person do you think I am? Do you even like me? Maybe I should stop thinking like that, focus on loving myself more as a person, as Aleesha. Though it’s hard, I hate that it’s hard but it is. Maybe knowing Aleesha isn’t worth it, maybe I’m a bad person without my copyright personalities, maybe I’m not. Or maybe Aleesha is a worthless good for nothing nobody, who is ugly and hates everything around her because she can’t be everyone around her. I make friends so easily because I know what people want, I know how to mold Aleesha to be likable, to judge when I have too, to know what to say and when to say it. But what happens of you strip that away from me? What happens when I no longer know what to say and how to be? Will I be nothing? Like all the other nameless things out there, will I not exist if not for my name? Is my name all that I am or am I more then that? I don’t know, maybe without my name and without my personalities, I’m just a pale naked shaking body at the bottom of a dark pit. Maybe I’m scared to fill the responsibility that a name requires. I’m scared to be someone if not everyone. I don’t like to think about it, I don’t like to think of reality. It scares the child in me that one day Aleesha will have to grow up, grow out of friends to keep me comfortable, grow up and be myself.

My name has always been my name (According to my dad it was made up way before I even had little legs), my name was my name when I was a kid, playing outside in the woods with my siblings, it was my name when I got called on in school, or when I was being yelled at. Always, Aleesha, Aleesha, Aleesha, Aleesha. Until my name almost became foreign to me. Ahh Lee Sh A. There’s just so much to it, so many times that I heard it, I wonder if it’s actually my name. What if it wasn’t my name? Would I be different? Are names what describe people. Our names are who we are or are we our names? People talk about labels all the time, “I don’t like labels.” “Why do you always have to put a labile on everything?” We have to because without labels we are nothing. Everything is nothing without labels. Do we have to be happy about it? No, by all means hate it, despise it, fucking loath it, but that’s who we are. A shit ton of labels walking around earth, which is in fact a label for our planet.

Maybe I’d like to have another name, I’ve thought about it a lot. When I was a kid I’d name myself after princess’s or trees or flowers. Anything to just have a pretty label, to be a pretty girl, to be a pretty human… but my name never changed. People laughed at me when I asked them to call me a different name, which always made me feel worse, but it never changed. I never had the balls and will never have them to actually change my name. Dispite how I feel about my name, my sisters smile while they say it, my friends laugh when they call me, they love my name, maybe I’ll love it too. Maybe it’ll make me as happy as it makes them. For now, though, I’m still Aleesha. Your shoulder to cry on? Sure. Your girlfriend? Sure. Your daughter? Your student? Your friend? Why the hell not? For me, Aleesha will never be those things, Aleesha will always be the second option, Aleesha will be the sulky teenager that talks over people when she’s excited, the one who won’t ever shut the fuck up, or can’t stop moving, or can’t be cool. The one who doesn’t understand when to laugh or ask about someones day, or just know everything.

I wish Aleesha knew everything, everything about everything. Even the things that make her unhappy or even depressed. The things that scare her and why they do, the secrets. All the secrets. The secrets of the universe. I hope, if Aleesha is good for one thing or another, she’ll be able to, at least, do the things she loves to do, maybe travel into space and have contact with aliens, maybe I’ll become more then. One day or another I have to be more then, I want everyone to love me, or hate me I don’t care, as long as they say the name I hate the most while they speak. I don’t have to like Aleesha, I don’t have to like labels, but that’s who I am, and maybe that’s who I was always destined to be. Even if not, that’s who I am now, I might as well make the most of it while I have it, right?