Do You Call Yourself a Writer?

Have you ever given much thought to your name? I hadn't until I was older except that my name was hard to pronounce, and I ended up spelling it to everyone I came in contact with. There would be times I was asked what country I was from because outside of my small community, it is not a common name, and on rare occasions, I was asked what it meant. It never offended me that people thought I might be from another country or that they couldn't spell my name I just thought of it as the facts of my life. 

When I was in college, I was asked and told what my name meant over and over again. I finally looked up my name meaning so I could recite to anyone else who asked because I did start to get a little annoyed. I had never gone by any nicknames or some altered version of my name. It was always lovely to hear my name properly pronounced without having to correct someone, but it was rare. 

There have been other names I have been called like fat when I was a child because I wasn't as slender as the other kids in my class. I don't ever remember being called smart in school though I was called a good many times, I never could understand what good really meant. I was called quite a lot more than I have ever been called anything else in my life. But then I was called weird, crazy, or strange when I started to open up to others and stopped being quiet. 

Life changing events call for name calling too. It was fun to be called the girlfriend at times, and it was better to be called the ex. I love being called a mother and a parent. I hoped to be an aunt one day, but sister had a beautiful ring to it too. An employee was also a beautiful name when the paycheck came from it as well. 

My favorite name didn't show up until the last year, and it was one I didn't think I would like as much as I did. It was important to me and was solidifying the previous three work and devotion. It was a writer. I can remember the first time I was referred to as a writer friend in a blog, and it was absolutely fantastic. My heart leaped out of my body into the upper atmosphere and back again in a second. 

I had been hesitant to refer to myself as a writer, and it sounds like I was an impostor because I couldn't answer the questions of where I had been published at or when my book would be out. When I found other writers, there hasn't been a question about validation with writers in my community. You write; therefore, you are a writer; it does matter the frequency or how long or what you are writing, you just write.