Lynnie

This is my favorite childhood photo of myself. I'm four. My maternal grandmother refused to call me by my given name for the first few years of my life. Kind of ironic that she wouldn't call me Marilyn, since she named her daughter Carolyn. (Although my mother has spent most of her life going by her middle name.) Instead, Nana called me Lynnie. All of my birthday and Xmas cards for the first few years of my life were addressed that way. But here's what no one knew until recently--even when Nana gave up calling me Lynnie, I took it as my secret name for myself. I never uttered it out loud, but I knew that inside I was Lynnie. "Marilyn" was who other people saw when they looked at me. She was that girl they expected to be perfect. But I knew I was really Lynnie--the one with the tangled hair and the undershirt poking out of her shirt. Lynnie didn't have to be perfect. Lynnie was sweet and fun...and open. Marilyn wasn't open, she couldn't be--she had all that armor to carry around.

A couple of years ago, I dug out this photo and put it in a frame and set it on my bedside table. She reminds me on a daily basis of who I really am.

The boyfriend likes this photo. He laughs and says that I still do that with my hair. :)