Namesake
Even though I am often alone, it is only every now and then that I enjoy it and crave it. Long to be lost between pages of a book, singing to myself and curled up in bed with my laptop and movie, hoping the door never creaks open.
Names are a funny thing, in a way that we feel the name defines us, we want a connection to it, to feel we belong to the title given to us. It is strange how changing one's name can be unsettling or liberating, or the feelings associated with nicknames and petnames.
Reding, "the Namesake" the main character is obssesed with this elusive concept. He refers to his two names as seperate people, seperate parts of himself, preffering one over the other. Although I do not feel it in the extreame he does, i've experienced the same things.
It is surreal to come across a person who still knows me as "Farah," suddenly I feel small, almost trapped, trapped by the image of the girl who was reffered to as "farah." I am not her, though I know her well.
Layla is who I am now. Layla is fitting and comfortbale for many reasons, one of which the people who first started calling by that name are close to me, and secondly, I came to be known centerally as Layla when a lot of change was happening in my life, change I welcomed.
Farah is just a memory. Often associated with isolation, of long hours sitting chained to a computer, of sitting by windows, alone, watching the world go by.
Perhaps then the real disticntion is the association of these names, and our need to either keep them or discard them.
"He cannot imagine being with her in a house where he is still Gogol"
Names are a funny thing, in a way that we feel the name defines us, we want a connection to it, to feel we belong to the title given to us. It is strange how changing one's name can be unsettling or liberating, or the feelings associated with nicknames and petnames.
Reding, "the Namesake" the main character is obssesed with this elusive concept. He refers to his two names as seperate people, seperate parts of himself, preffering one over the other. Although I do not feel it in the extreame he does, i've experienced the same things.
It is surreal to come across a person who still knows me as "Farah," suddenly I feel small, almost trapped, trapped by the image of the girl who was reffered to as "farah." I am not her, though I know her well.
Layla is who I am now. Layla is fitting and comfortbale for many reasons, one of which the people who first started calling by that name are close to me, and secondly, I came to be known centerally as Layla when a lot of change was happening in my life, change I welcomed.
Farah is just a memory. Often associated with isolation, of long hours sitting chained to a computer, of sitting by windows, alone, watching the world go by.
Perhaps then the real disticntion is the association of these names, and our need to either keep them or discard them.
"He cannot imagine being with her in a house where he is still Gogol"