On-Track in an Off-Track Kind of Life

Ah, it just occurred to me that I'm a third of the way done with these. Which is somewhat depressing..

This reminds me of the blogs I had to do like every day for Creative Writing class, but on a smaller scale. We didn't really have to write them every day, but we had to do like 50 of them over the class period. So I just wrote them every day.

But then I felt obligated to continue them after I’d passed the 50 mark because I've always been a teacher’s pet and for some reason I thought that would make me more likable, even though the teacher probably didn't even care. And besides, I've heard (and what writer hasn't) that you should write every day in order to be a good writer, so I sort of wanted to continue that..which is also why I tried to get back into writing my own blog in the summer.

Which lasted for about a week before I started slacking off. I had been inspired by seeing the movie "Julie and Julia" again, and then reading the actual blog. I wanted to inspire other people like I had been inspired.

I also wanted to mention that I got super pissed when my mom also told me I should be writing everyday if I want to be a good writer. Because, um, I already know that, but you know what, I'm not gonna write everyday and I'll still be a good writer. So there.

I'm such a teenage rebel.

Wow, so many paragraphs, and I didn't even mean to write anything on that which I did write about.. what I meant to talk about in this post was name meanings.

Because in that video we saw in class I was strangely struck by the woman who shared what her name meant.. because she suggested that her name sort of represented her. And it seems strange, but I've never really thought about it being like that.

Like, I've always known what my first name means...valley, or dweller in the valley. And I was like, oh, that's cool.. but I never really felt like that could be a translation of myself and my personality. Because I guess I always sort of assumed that I was named what I was named, and it doesn't really affect or is affected by my personality. But it kind of can be, I think.

So then I started thinking all philosophically about what "dweller in the valley" could mean in terms of myself. And I kind of feel like in my own situation, it's kind of emphasizing my mellow-ness and quietness, and the fact that people tend to come to me to talk about things, because I seem like someone who's safe to talk to.

So then my middle name, Alexandra--it apparently means protector of men. Which is kind of interesting, because I am very protective of my relationships with people, and protective of my friends in general. Also, I have a strong need in my soul to help people, and to make them feel good about themselves. It makes me feel like I exist in the world for a reason, in a way that none of the superficial things that go on everyday do. It makes me want to completely rid myself of those superficial things, though that's not always possible.

And finally my last name, the iconic "Bond"-- "a householder or tiller of the soil." Which I guess makes sense in the sense that my father's family were farmers and very hard-working, and my parents have always instilled in me a sense of needing to work for what I want or need. From an early age, I was never given any free money. I've always paid for things myself with whatever I might have saved up.

Of course, the things I deem as trying and hard-worked tasks are often not quite so in my parents eyes, but that's another story. I feel like the classic teenager, but honestly, we grew up in two different worlds. There’s a whole new, different, and equally difficult (in different ways) set of standards to live up to today.

So that was my adventure in discovering my identity through my name.

Now it seems to me that everyone should find some self-identity in their own names, if they never have before.

Go to it.

~Dale B.