My grandmother called me Sugar, my dad sometimes called me the Queen of Sheba, my husband called me Sunshine. My friends call me Becky, my colleagues, Rebecca, and here in cyber space, I'm Becca (of the Byline). All these appelations bear some truth about my essential nature. Yes, I am sweet, as my grandmother recognized. Sometimes I do feel entitled to royal treatment, though I'm generally content to spread warmth and joy into the lives of those I love. I am a bit Old World, as the ancient history of my Hebrew name would suggest, but I'm willing to sample modernity when the situation requires.
I'm also a baby boomer, I was once a stay at home mom, and I'm now an empty nester. I float somewhere in the nether world between mid-life and senior citizen.
None of these nametags tell you very much about the essential Becca - the one who's all about family and home, fairness and honesty, simple pleasures and lasting love, enjoying life and honoring your gifts. Or the Becca who was once afraid of stairs and is still afraid of spiders.
From my simple introduction, you would never know that I love the water, but can't swim, or that I've always harbored secret dreams about ballroom dancing and race car driving. That I've been drinking coffee since I was three years old, and it's my drink of choice for most any situation. Or that I'm an only child, a child of divorced parents, and wandering through the world with a very tiny, precious number of people who share my blood. Unless you know me well, you wouldn't know how conflicted I sometimes get about my music and my writing (never good enough!). How much I worry about what will happen in the future~where will we live, will we have enough money, what will we do for health care. You wouldn't know that many mornings my eyes pop open at 4:00 am and all these worrisome thoughts invade my mind, poking and prodding, agitating me until I surrender and get up to make myself hot cocoa to soothe my pounding head.
I can now readily walk up to people, offer my hand, and say "Hi, I'm Becca. Have we met?" But I was once painfully shy, and rarely spoke unless spoken to first. I now realize the really interesting part comes after that simple introduction, where I get to know the person behind the name, and share a bit of my own essential self with another human being. That's what keeps us human, isn't it? The sharing of our stories, the offering of little bits of ourselves.
But it all starts with a name.
My name is Becca...have we met?
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