the nicknames of yore

Daily writing prompt

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

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Once upon a time, I found myself baffled at how often people posted with their entire names on the Internet. The first name I chose for myself when Facebook hit the spheres of awareness of my fellow middle school classmates was Nancy Chang. I friended everyone I knew and cluelessly believed they would all know who I was because surely, an account with the name “Nancy” could only ever be Ru-Ping.

I don’t know what exact mixture of childhood experiences, parenting, having grown up in the U S of A pre-love-for-ethnic-names, having grown up in a pre-dominantly EAsian community filled to the brim with children struggling to navigate the complexities of identity led to the mindset above. But whatever the sponge that was my brain during my childhood years absorbed led to an overwhelming fear and I spent the next decade coming up with new names every time I felt that I had outgrown a blog or social media account.

For an extended period of time, I used to be eriasop on Twitter. I then became Cerisa when I wanted to pursue acting. At one point, everything was some version of Roxanne. But now it’s just Ru-Ping 😀

I don’t normally spend a lot of time on Tiktok but I’ve been watching a lot of Tiktoks relating to “friendships lessons learned the hard way.” At some point in time, a limiting belief about the ability of the company I kept to celebrate me ruled my life and I created nicknames to hide my accomplishments from these people, because I did not believe it was possible for them to be happy for me. When I discovered this belief, I gave all of them a chance.

Some people have fallen away. Others have gone silent. I’m sure it’s true that some of them have been incredibly sick, others have gotten busy, and some have just decided to not respond to anything in our mutual group chats because they are in crisis. I’m sure there is a compelling reason for all of the above.

But people make time for those they truly care about, and find time for everyone else. I had to learn this the hard in an insanely-painful-manner-that-no-human-being-should-ever-have-to-experience last year, and finally had the courage to do something meaningful about it two months ago.

Old me would have lamented the curse of the eldest daughters of immigrant families who are taught to be responsible for everyone else and to expect the same of no one, not even themselves. As it turns out, feeling the need to be responsible for everyone is a net negative no matter how you spin it and I imagine these next couple of years will be an exercise in identifying what exactly is mine to fix.

In the words of Charlotte Bronte a la Jane Eyre, this is the new me:

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with [people who raised me up instead of showing me I had no needs worth fulfilling] some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”