What’s in a Name?

Brandon: Deception, pain, anger, bad memories. Love, good memories, almost the one. The reason I started this blog.

When I hear that name, no matter who the name belongs to, my first reaction is to think of those words. Names define a person. Perhaps not for everyone, but it does for me. I have a bad feeling about all girls names Allison because a girl back in high school was a huge bitch to me. Likewise, I immediately get a flash of hate when I meet or hear about someone named Brandon. I guess he just fucked me over that much.

So, imagine my surprise when I’m scrolling through Facebook and I see a picture my best friend “liked”. It was a picture Brandon had posted, and it was a picture of what I assumed was his 6 month old baby girl. Usually I wouldn’t care. I had gotten over him, right? I don’t care about his life anymore. But then I made the mistake of reading the caption.

“Amelia sleeping so peacefully tonight.”

For those of you who don’t know, that’s my name. My name is Amelia.

At first I was confused. Amelia? Why would he type that? Obviously that picture was not the picture of his baby girl… it was someone else’s. It had to be. So, of course, I consulted my best friend who “liked” the picture to confirm my thoughts.

But no. That is his baby girl. And he named her Amelia.

So now I’m sitting here, processing the idea that my ex’s little girl has my name. Perhaps you don’t understand what the big deal is, and if you don’t then feel free to consult the first 10-15 posts of this blog. He is the reason I started it. I was in a dark place after he kind of tossed me on the curb and then proceeded to try and drag me back for 6 more months. He wanted to be friends with me, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want him to be able to say my name with any happiness.

But now he says it every day, full of love and hope and happiness.

And once again, like I’ve ended almost every blog post about him for the past 4 years, I’m still hurting.