Growing
up, I always wanted a nickname. I guess
I thought it would be super cool to have an alias and when I was younger, I
really wanted to be a cool kid. So one
day in fourth grade I started signing my papers, Andy. I think my teacher and my parents recognized
it for what it was, a ploy for attention.
Needless to say, they continued to call me by my actual name.
The
other kids in my class, the ones who were not my friends, thought it was
stupid. They even emphatically told me
that Andy was a boy’s name. It was a
slam to my ego, but I wasn’t quite ready to accept defeat. To return to my given name so quickly would give
them too much power. It would show them
what they already knew, that I was strange and easily conquered; only now they
would know I knew it too. It was very
much like the time they ridiculed me for wearing a hat to school. While it didn’t take me long to realize just
how odd this two-in-one hat did actually look, I continued to wear it out of
spite. I couldn’t let them see how much
their opinion really mattered.
I’m
sure none of them had ever been the odd one out. The worst part is there is no way out; it’s a
vicious cycle. You try to fit in when
you were never meant to and they despise you for it. So you try harder, thinking if you could just
be more like them, or tell enough jokes, or wear the right clothes, they might
change their mind. Little do you know
that no matter how funny you are, or how in style, they’ve already decided that
everything about you is wrong. These were
the kids who made you cry every day when you got home; who made you wish you
could be likeable, normal.
Enter
Casey, an independent spirit. The most
confident and decided fourth grader there ever was. She was cool.
The other kids thought she was funny, invited her to sleepovers, and sat
with her at lunch. They would not have
mocked her for wearing a silly looking hat.
It wasn’t because her family was wealthy, or she was beautiful (which she was),
it was because she accepted herself regardless of who else did. This
girl had the courage to be my friend while I was a social pariah. She stood by me even when I wore that
ridiculous hat. She even began to call
me Andy. Casey was the only person who
has ever called me that, and she did it the rest of her life. However, it was not because it was a fitting
nickname. Of all the nicknames that I
have received, Andy was by far the least suitable. She called me that because it was my wish, my
desire to be called that, and she honored it.
I grew
into myself as the years passed and I began to see what that name represented. It was loving the unlovable; extending
mercy. It was leaving the cool kid’s
table at lunch, to sit with the girl in the dual purpose hat. So that girl will know next time that she
doesn’t have to try as hard, because she already has a ringer on her side.
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