Friday, August 9, 2013

Gold Star for Me

You'd think because I chose to change my name and I'm making a splash about it, that I'd remember to actually introduce myself as Vivi Sojorhn. I'd say in actuality that I'm up to about a third of the time getting it right and I mentally give myself a gold star just for saying my own name these days. That's got to be a good way to start. Gold star every time I say, "My name is Vivi Sojorhn." It makes me smile.



All kinds of things have come up mentally about this change, including a partial aphasic seizure in which all words tangled themselves for a very short while in my brain. No need to wring your hands about it, as it hardly slowed me down more than an afternoon. This is part of my recovering from having the benign meningioma removed from my head in February of 2012. This made me think that really the reason I have changed my name is BECAUSE I CAN. I can choose to change my name, to paint a painting on my computer, to start a magazine, to laugh with my kids and kiss my husband, and do whatever I want to do BECAUSE I CAN. I am alive and count myself lucky.

Learning to Look Up, Digitally Painted 2013, by Vivi Sojorhn
Dislodging oneself from the rules that go with a name is profound, and different from expectations, OF COURSE. You may have noticed I tend to assume I can handle big stuff happening, and it turns out to be true. Apparently, when dying, Lord Alfred Tennyson said, "I have opened it," and from this perspective of having visited the Valley of Death in many of my experiences of the last several years, I sort of feel that changing my name has brought me closest to understanding what he may have meant by that. I feel that I've passed through a new door that is so subtle it is barely noticeable but so vastly different on the other side that I am in awe.

Sweet Surrender, Digitally Painted 2013, by Vivi Sojorhn
I find myself mourning for "Amanda" and feeling a part of me that is worn out and needing a good long rest, and is finally getting it. There is some deep part of me that is allowed to be quiet. I can't explain it now more than that I feel lifted often, though not all the time. I feel that I am more powerful in very specific ways that I did not guess at before I made the decision. Decisiveness being a primary strength. In that I've taken to walking quicker, to exercising less doubt, and, perhaps, to being a little bit or a lot more practical by response. I am the same person, and I am relieved to fully allow change. There is no clear beginning or end on this journey, only sweet surrender.