My+Name

//Reclaiming Pamela//

//Pamela//—all sweet, honey. That sums me up pretty well. But that’s not all I am. At different time’s, I am different me’s. I am my best friend’s Pam, a simple name without any frills. I am my mom and dad’s Pam the Ham, childish but with the comforts of home. In my younger years, I was even PJ—my uncle’s tomboy approach. My little brother threw my name out of his vocabulary all together, adopting the affectionate yet confidence-weakening Sissy. And to my boyfriend, I am Pammy, an affectionate and playful alteration. To every one else in this world, I am one of these //things,// these odd derivative of my beautiful name—//Pamela//.

But in third grade, my teacher gave me an opportunity at being the real me, the me I know and understand as //Pamela//. As she took roll on the initial day of school, for the first time in my brief yet valuable scholastic career, she asked for each of us to tell her the name that we individually preferred. I couldn’t believe it! I finally had a choice! And I was going to choose //Pamela//. As my teacher ventured through the alphabetical listing of our names, Michael A. suddenly became Mike, Katherine turned to Katie, James stayed James, Michael G. morphed into Mikey, and Lisa Marie shortened it to Lisa—all in front of my own eyes. It was amazing! To my eight-year old brain, I swore my classmates warped into new personas with these personal name choices. I waited anxiously for my turn—not patiently. Saying I waited patiently would be a lie because to a child with a last name that starts with a W, this new approach to attendance was too exciting to be patient!

I sat at my desk with my palms clasped together, almost in prayer mode. I begged that my chance to choose would come quicker. //Please let the last names skip from M to W,// I wished silently. I wriggled in my seat in order to control my self from a sudden “PAMELA!” outburst, I wanted it that badly. In my head, I began to practice how I would say it. //Please call me Pamela// or //I’m just Pamela, thank you// or even the much simpler //Yes, Pamela.// But before I even had my chance to utter any of these words, //she// happened.

That’s right—just as my teacher reached within five letters of my W, Pamela Severini appeared. Like a stealth bomber, her precise intrusiveness crashed into my Pamela dream world. When asked what she preferred others to call her, she responded with a meek yet vindictive, “Hi, I’m Pamela//.//” Pamela! //My// Pamela! My name! The name I waited eight years to obtain! The name others found too fancy to actually fit a slight, brown-haired girl with narrow eyes, spacey teeth, and lots of spunk like myself. The sound of my name coming from her lips was like the feeling I had the Christmas before when my little cousin took permanent marker and scribbled blue all over the face of my new doll. It was an eight-year old nightmare! I cringed, I bit my lip, and I nearly wept at the thought of being Pam for one more year. My teacher moved onto the next student, Michelle Whitescarver, whose name remained her own. My turn. I knew it was coming. “Ah, it looks as though we’re doubling up again! Pamela Wrede, shall we call you Pam?” The smiling faces of the students who had already reclaimed their names seemed to be aimed precisely in my pitiful, double-name direction. My brain rattled, trying to come up with a suave alternative. Pamela W.? Pamela #2? The other Pamela? Nothing would do. I swallowed my pride and dejectedly remained Pam—one of the non-Pamela faces I wore for so many years.

And now, still struggling to be Pamela in all aspects of my life—the name that I feel rolls as sweetly as honey off of the tongue and looks so beautiful when written out in the cursive I learned the following year—I have realized that though Pam is not as elegant, Pammy is slightly immature, and PJ is playfully rough, having these varieties to my name completes who I am today. But of course, it is the //Pamela// I truly am that is intelligent enough to realize this.