What’s in a name?

My name means tradition. Times of the world when women were silent subservients. It means the olden days, days we are loathe to fully break free from because we use them to track our progress, marks we can brag “see how far we’ve come.” My grandfather says my name like those olden days, rolls it off his tongue like a command. My name is Biblical, canon... his and his alone. My mother named me to spite him. Princess, it means, in Hebrew. Her little princess. The only girl, promised in her heart at the age of fourteen to be Sarah.

Sarah. Her best friend who came and went from her life with the passing of high school to college, then returned in later forms as years went on.

Sarah. Classically inspired like the life she chose to lead, traditions of warmth and love to replace the rigid structure she came from.

Sarah. The Tony-award winning actress who rocked the stage of London’s Royal like my father would rock the still squalling baby to sleep, singing her songs.

Sarah. Mixed blessing and curse: one of nine throughout the school years, degraded to last names of first letters. Mix-ups and mistakes made, blamed on any who shared a common syllabary. And identity built around those others. Their little princess. A mother and father’s excellent care. Love. Warmth. Traditions.

My name is that of the many. A crowd. My name is commonality and plain. My name is that of the common woman, the working woman, the queen. My name is mothers and daughters and cousins and sisters and friends. My name is loved. It is hated. My name is cried by those it has hurt, laughed by those it has loved. My name is bigger than me, than those who have bonded over it.

Sometimes I fear that my name has more person than the girl it has chosen to wear.

My name is a giant, crushing the worlds of identities between the toes of indifference. It is she down the hall, the dorm halls last year, the five of us in a single moment. It is she who was a childhood neighbor, the mother of a close friend. My name is the sorrow of a high tower, locked away from the world. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, cast off your name... a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

My name is inconsequential. A word. Air breathed through unfamiliar mouths to the person they have not grown to know. My name is the love that passes through the air as those solitary words are spoken. My name is the laughs and calls that greet me as I find myself among the family I have collected. My name is the soft breaths on my neck that catch the hugs from close ones. My name is the glee that sparkles my mother’s eye, the gruff smile from my stoic father. My name is transient, changing form with each new relationship. Each friend gives me a new name, which I collect and embrace like I do those who gift them.

My name is bigger than I. Than any who it has been bestowed upon.

I wear my name. It does not wear me.