A Rose By Any Other Name

Or, Passing Thoughts.
Couldn't figure out what to call the entry.

A rose by any other name, sure, it might smell sweet...but it's not a "rose".

Now that we're back in America with all of the people who have known us since birth, or since they were born, we are reduced to The Other Girl's name. She doesn't exist anymore, we know that...but The Mother, The Father, Brothers...Step-Dad, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandma...they don't know that. Immediate family knows we are Frankie, but are not able to call us that, because of their own inability...so to us we are someone else to them. To people who never really knew us, or The Other Girl at all anyway.

The nice thing about England was that everyone we met, not just people from Twitter, they know us as us...as Frankie. James' dad, his grandmother and uncle, his cousin and her husband and uncle...Kerry, the beautiful Kerry and her husband and son. They know Frankie. As far as England is concerned we are Frankie. As far as James, The Boyfriend, is concerned we are Frankie. He has to use our birth name, our government name, from time to time. He dislikes it. We feel like a fraud using it, even though we know how the general public is about names.

Back in America, and we are no longer Frankie...a rose by any other name, still wants to be called a rose, still wants to be called what it is. We are not her.

It might not be a big deal to many, but spending so long hidden beneath the name of The Other Girl, and now not having to really hide...it makes being back in the States, where we have to hide form the only people who know any part of us, a little desirable. Did we mention we don't know people in the United States anymore?

From here forward every person we know will know us as Frankie...everyone but the people who can't let go, the permanent people in our life, because it feels weird to them. We'd rather them call us "hey, you"...

Mental Health Month 2012