Excerpt:
That's Dr. Deefy BRYAN to you!
Amaranth Ciara Millet isn’t my name, but it could have been.
As my teenage years drew to a close, I grew increasingly incensed that I should share a last name with a bozo whose idea of fun was daydreaming about the circumstances under which he might someday get to shoot an inmate.
My last face-to-face conversation with said bozo (let’s call him “TB”) occurred a week or two before I moved to South Korea. I told TB I’d always love him, but that there was no place for someone so accountability-free in my life. After all, I’d needed a father when I was growing up, but instead found myself met alternately by an invisible man . . . and a man I wished would have remained invisible.
That my mom could pour her entire being into raising my siblings and me only to see us bear TB’s name forward into the world infuriated me. I was determined to change my last name so it reflected the full truth of my parentage instead of simply the spermal source name. And, hey! Wouldn’t you know it, a name change didn’t just encompass one name. The name-change fee would cover a full-name overhaul. I could be Rainbow Sunshine Sparkle-tail Finnigan if I felt like it!
Amaranth Ciara Millet was obviously much better suited to me.
Wow. You are a very strong woman. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I was riding high on the feeling behind this post straight through getting clipped that evening! I lost it for a little after that, but I think I've found my footing again. :)
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