My Name, My Song: Pt. 1

Hi internets, my name is Jenny. Some people [my late grandmother, my high school calculus teacher, the director of my program] call me Jennifer. Some people [my lab, my friend Sam, my gay roommate] call me Jen. [In the case of the latter, it goes something like this, "Jen is soooo fabulous." I'm now allowing that as an acceptable nickname].

There is much debate on how much personal information a blogger should include in their writing. Some bloggers include full name, names of children, location. Some include their names, but leave out the names of their children. Some use pseudonyms for either themselves or for their children.

Why bother, some may ask. And the general answer is that blogging can be a pretty dangerous affair. People lose jobs over their blogs. People offend friends and family members. People blog about the things they don't want to--or can't--talk about in other forums: confessionals about parenting, frustrations with any facet of every day life, the constant struggle of living with [even treated] mental illness. Inherent in the form is the idea that one can hide behind one's words, that for once our words are sufficient to paint the portraits of ourselves, to color our insufficiencies and dreams, to shadow in our fears and hurts.

I have many reasons to stay anonymous here. I'm a student in a medical school who is often frustrated with her situation. I talk shit about administrators and classmates. The anonymity allows me to be honest, to write boldly about the way I am feeling. It allows me to admit that this isn't easy, that in dark and less effectively treated moments I obsess with warm razors. It allows me a place to pool and explore my feelings with permanence, something I won't have to remove when I become a doctor, when people start googling. It allows me control over the one thing I insist must be in my control: the power to designate who knows and does not know about my illness.

But, at the same time, it feels a bit empty to remain nameless, to be floating around with no anchor. The naming of things is important; the naming of people, more so. It's hard to tell stories about my life without attaching my name to them, because stories with names are inherently more powerful. And if not more powerful, then at least somehow more real.

So, I'm making the decision to include my first name. Still no mention of my school or city; still quite anonymous, stalking through the hallways of school with the knowledge that this is here, that anyone of my classmates could stumble upon this site and not know it's me. A thought that makes me comfortable and even, really, pleased.

And, I guess, tomorrow I'll continue with part two, which is the thing that made me start thinking about naming myself anyway.