Just Carol Jean

I have spent almost my entire life living in or near the same miniscule map dot – an estimated thirty-five of my current forty-four years.   That place— exit 99, head west five miles and whatever you do, Don’t Blink!— and all its surrounding space has housed more of my moments than I have memory of.   All my secrets, all my scars, lay embedded in the dust and rust of its half-hearted attempted development.   People come, places go, names change, but the bones – the streets, all stay the same. 

Words, for me, have always been a sort of – hobby.   I’m not the most accomplished articulate, but I’d like to think I can throw around a few fancy fragments and phrases – enough to lift my level of loft up a notch or two should I desire a defined discourse or declaration.   And yet, for all of my enthusiastic English efforts – there are a few words that I find difficult to annunciate and, interestingly enough – accomplish.   Two such words with which I wrestle are - specific, and success(ful).  

One of Shakespeare's fair maidens once wondered "What's in a name?" and of course, in true curious creature form- that got me thinking too.   My answer- a bit more complex than dear Juliet's soliloquy – seems to depend greatly on the person associated with said name and its placement in their full name composition.   Most people are given at least a first, middle, and last name upon their birth.   We don’t have a choice in their selection or arrangement.   We are stuck, destined in a round-about way to become the person our parents prescribed us to be.   Even through our