You can call me ...

It’s the question adults ask a child, usually with hands on knees and a patronizing bend toward the little one hiding behind her mother’s legs. “And, what’s your name?” Our daughter, who had an unusual name, would have an unusual answer. She also wasn’t one to hide from attention. “Well, my real name is Leorah, but you can call me Clara [as in the ingenue in the Nutcracker], or Winnie-A-Pooh, or . . .” and continue with a list of whatever make-believe characters she was most interested in at the time. It was cute, for a two-year-old.

As a sixty-year-old, I see Leorah’s point, because I too have played many roles. Recently, Mark and I attended his business school reunion where we caught up with friends who knew us when many of our adventures were still ahead of us. During our two years in Cambridge, we were between stories: both out of the military but not yet parents. I was just beginning my teaching, and Mark was wondering what he would discover in the world of business. We were not exactly the people we had been, nor were yet the people we would become.

Of course our interests and ambitions morph over different periods of our lives. So do our identities. And along the way, we wish to hold onto bits of the characters we have been. I’m not sure why we want people who meet us now to also know who we once were. It feels like something old people do. I used to roll my eyes when my father would talk about being captain of his high school debate team or how hard he and his brother had to work on the family farm during the depression. To my adolescent ears, it just felt like an old man bragging.

It has been a decade since my father told any stories, and I am more sympathetic than I once was. I undersant that the old man in the recliner watching Fox News in his white tube sox and slip ons, wanted us to know the fierce tennis player, the formidable trial attorney, and the young man who fell in love with the prettiest girl in their town.

Perhaps Leorah was onto something. People who once knew me as a high school cheerleader may not have recognized Lt. Wilber in my Marine Corps uniform. Those I trained with at Quantico would not know the Mom I became. The friends I have met since we moved to NH are unfamiliar with Mrs. Wood, the middle school teacher. But that’s OK. Next time I’m asked, I may say, “My name? Well, that depends.”