Bell

⋆⭒˚.⋆Remembering my very recent past⋆⭒˚.⋆

The very talented @sakanazakana

I’m not sure when I was first told my name, but I assume it was given to me as I entered the world. I was screaming and they were saying, “Alex Bell, Alex Bell, Alex Bell” before they handed me to my nineteen-year-old mother. She didn’t know much about me but she knew I was, “Alex Bell, Alex Bell, Alex Bell.”  

As I got older and began to understand my place in the world, I loved that I shared my name with grown men and little girls alike. It helped me make sense of why I liked to play kickball ‘til I was sweaty and took care of my baby brothers like they were my own. My name made me feel like I could do anything. Be anything.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize my name was a placeholder for the real thing. My friends would jot my name down in sparkly ink next to my crush’s name. I’d laugh. It was fun to imagine a life where I was in love and could drive things like cars. Being a little girl is a heavy burden, it was nice to pretend to have power. 

But somewhere in there, I knew the reality. I knew that one day I would love someone enough to change the name I inherited. I knew that the time would come for my family of origin to send me off without a trace. I knew that my name would eventually represent an unfamiliar story from the past.

And still, this morning under bright fluorescent lights, I signed “Alex Bell” to give the government (and everyone else) permission to call me “Alex Rasmussen” instead.

“You're going from a short name to a long name,” the clerk said.

“Haha yeah,” I said welling up with tears. 

I saw alphabetical order. And then I saw… me. When you change such a major part of your identity, you’re forced to ask, who was I really? And who I am really?

Alex Bell 

Is every age besides 29

She is taller than every boy in her class until she isn’t

She’s just started college

and she she’s begging her babysitter for one more slice of hot cheese

She’s (in Mary Oliver’s words) “sav[ing] the only life that [she] can save.”

Alex Rasmussen

Is the same as Alex Bell with a few minor adjustments

Like two tabby cats

and way less anxiety

She has warmth with her neighbors

And is still reading in her room

I got a sense of personal evolution– a marker in time that said, “this part of me stopped” so that “this part of me could begin.”

Obviously, that new part of me is largely my entrance into the world of marriage. I always thought that altering my identity, swapping my name, might require I wear high heels and start some sort of honey-do list. But, I am constantly surprised to find that with this shift in identity I became much closer to the person who started this whole journey, the person I have been all along.

It turns out that good love keeps a picture of your nine-year-old self on his desk and hangs up a painting you made as a kid. It turns out good love makes you feel safe enough to do things you like, not things you thought you always had to. Good love protects the most inner part of you, so that you can let it breathe without fear of shame. Good love is a rich taste of freedom.

I don’t really have to wonder what younger me would think of Alex Rasmussen. She’d think Chris is cute and she’d like all my books. She’d be surprised to find that love didn’t erase me, it brought me into being. 

Of course I know I didn’t have to change my name. Honestly, even my pharmacist tried to talk me out of it. 

“You’re going to have to spell your name out for us now, are you sure you’re ready for that?”

And friends promised, “I am still going to call you Alex Bell!!!”

But I know that no matter the name I hold, it was never mine to start with. There’s no right way to decide who you want to be for the rest of your life, but this new name made me feel a sense of belonging with my partner. I felt a shift from the independent nature that I was forced into, to independence in the form of self-respect. Changing my name was an act of love that cannot be reciprocated and an acknowledgment that I am part of something new. 

Or maybe names are like inside jokes with all of the people we’ve ever met and maybe I like to keep you on your toes. 

Maybe names hold a history and a future and it felt like time to change mine.

Maybe my name is just a sound that I got all attached to.

Maybe Alex Bell worked hard for a love that amplifies her truest nature

And now, Alex Rasmussen just gets to relish in it.