I get it. I'm not anyone special.
In case you don't know me, I'm just a girl from Texas in a true southern state attending university. There are people who traveled farther than me and parents who signed more checks than mine. I'm another short haircut majoring in English at a school where most people have already been published by sources other than the blog they started when they were seventeen. Why should I matter?
Let me back up for a second. There's one problem here, and it's not that the sprinklers still spray the sidewalks after it rains, or that occasionally all the dryers are taken and you have to air-dry your laundry in your dorm room. The one thing I cannot stand about my university is that I do not matter.
My name is on the roll sheet, it's scribbled across the tops of papers I turn in. I wear it on a necklace that my mom got me for Christmas and state it when I raise my hand in Senate. Yet somehow, no one knows my name.
I'm the Other Emma.
There's plenty of people with similar names, even on a campus as small as Hollins. It's not unheard of to have two Taylor's or three Jessica's in a student body, so why is having two Emma's in class a ground-breaking realization? Why am I the only one without a name?
It's not really anyone's fault, except the professors, classmates, and general population who remarked, "oh, you're the other Emma" each time I introduced myself. Uh no, I'm just Emma. I don't exist purely out of comparison to another person. As someone who usually takes everything quite personally, I couldn't help but lash out at the people who said this to me, even in passing. "That's not my name," was the first thing out of my mouth, followed by an expletive or a grimace, depending on how I was feeling.
What's worse is I didn't even feel like Emma anymore. Something about moving to the East coast from central Texas knocked something loose in me. I wasn't that girl anymore. Emma means whole, or so I've been told, and lately I feel like the furthest thing from that. To top it all off, I didn't feel worthy of a two syllable name. The extra effort it took people to acknowledge me didn't seem right. On a whim, I dropped the end of my name. I'm Em.
It's tough to change something so key to your identity, and I don't always respond when people use my name now. I feel so fake sometimes, like I'm trying to be someone I'm not. Black lipstick and chokers can't make up for what I'm going through inside, but slowly, I'm becoming who I think I'm supposed to be. Isn't that what matters?
