Me and My Name: A History

My name is Lee. I am a woman. I am not Chinese. Lee is my whole first name. My name means meadow. It goes well with “bird.”

These facts seem worth stating given the number of repeated questions I’ve received throughout my life about this simple, three-letter name. Recently I went to a massage appointment with a therapist I’d never met. I was seated very near her when she called my name in the reception area, yet she looked past me, around me, anywhere but at me. This is a familiar experience, but usually it's because someone is expecting to see a man. However, after I raised my hand two feet away from the therapist and said, “I’m Lee,” she was genuinely surprised that I did not appear Chinese. After we walked back to the tiny massage room, she asked briefly what my trouble areas were but then, with more focus, she wanted to know whether I was Chinese. I looked at her, with my very Caucasian face inches from hers, and told her no, I was not. I thought that should resolve the issue.

Minutes later, after I was unclothed, lying face-down and ready to relax in peace, she told me she saw my name on the chart and expected to see a “Chinese lady." This I already knew. But in an effort to discourage further conversation, I just laughed politely and said “Oh.” Then, because she must have been having a very hard time reconciling my name with my non-Chinese ethnicity, she said in her heavy Eastern European accent, “A lot of Chinese name Lee.” I said, “Well, it may be a common last name,” hoping to just put the matter to rest. As she continued to sloppily beat the muscles along my back with a technique I’d never before experienced, she said, baffled, “Oh, last name?” I said firmly, “Yeah,” hardly an expert in the subject but wanting to end to the chit-chat.

During the rest of the massage, which was anything but relaxing or therapeutic, I thought about the history of encounters I’d had like this, people having very assured expectations about the kind of person I would, or should, be based on these three letters. I’d had my own challenges accepting my name at an early age, once I realized the particular spelling of my name was more commonly the “masculine” spelling rather than the feminine.

In first grade, on the first day of school I recall my teacher separating the boys and girls into two groups in the classroom before she called roll. (Why, I have no clue.) When she got to my name, she looked over to the group of boys. I was mortified. It was the first of many corrections I would make throughout the years about my gender, based on the spelling of my name. It’s possible, too, that my bowl-cut hair did little to lend femininity to my person. But I should not have needed to be concerned with such things, and someone had made me suddenly acutely aware that there could be any least bit of confusion about my gender, and it troubled me, right or wrong.

You do you, Lee.

In middle school, I’d become so bothered by the assumptions people might be making that I decided to change the spelling from L-E-E to L-E-I-G-H—the more common spelling for female Lees. To further emphasize the femaleness of my name, I added a flower as the dot above the “I.” Of course, I only changed the spelling on my school papers and in notes to friends, and because it did not match the spelling on record at my school, my act of defiance only caused confusion among my teachers, which at least one of them pointed out to me. Ever the obedient student, I went back to plain old L-E-E.

Occasionally throughout my grade school years, a new teacher would notice my middle name was Anne and ask if I preferred to go by Lee Anne (certainly that must be my preference; I was a girl). I liked the idea of that so I said yes, that was my preference. But neither they nor I were consistent about it, and I never tried to enforce it with friends or family, so the new name never stuck.

I eventually grew to love my name, in its masculine, modest three letters. It was unique among all the people I’d ever known (especially for a girl). It’s worth noting that, in my more than three decades of living, I’ve met one male Lee, that I can recall, and at least one female Lee. So the easy assumption toward male Lee is a little baffling.

Today, when I receive email salutations that begin with “Mr.,” as I frequently do, sometimes I correct the sender and sometimes I don’t. If I will meet the individual in person, I usually note that, FYI, I’m a woman. Or in a more formal context I sign my name in the reply email with “(Ms.)” before my name, which seems the gentlest way to make a correction. Nevertheless, people always seem very embarrassed about the error, and I just tell them not to worry; it happens all the time.

I try to make things easy for people who take my name down from hearing it, for example, the baristas and food service staff at shops that ask for my name to go with my order. I always say, “Lee, L-E-E,” just to eliminate the guesswork. (Of course, at most of these places, the staff person has just taken my credit card payment, and I want to point out that they could eliminate the need to ask for my name by just looking at the card, but I refrain.) During one such instance, a friend was with me and began laughing after I spelled my name. Thinking there was nothing amusing about this courtesy I was extending, I asked what was funny. He said that it’s not hard to spell. I KNOW, RIGHT? And yet it was. At least, correctly. For this woman. Prior to this practice, in my less instructive days, the spelling of my name proved difficult for said staff. Point in case:

I mean, of all the options.

Something else people have asked me is whether Lee was my whole first name. I kind of get this. It’s a common middle name. It’s short. It begs for a second syllable. In preschool, kids rectified this deficit on their own, by calling me names like Lee Pee, Lee Jeans, Lee Press-on-Nails. Even though only the first one came close to being a creatively damaging nickname (the others were just actual  brand names of products used mostly by our mothers), they all were said with cruel intention, with mockery, and so they all stung.

At home, however, Lee Bird was the nickname of choice, and it was said with endearment, so I liked it. I still do. And I love birds, in an objectifying kind of way, because they make me think of this family-given nickname. (Also, symbolism, etc.)

Mid-30s, still rocking the "Bird."

But back to middle names. I mentioned that Lee is a common middle name. In fact, my first name is my twin sister's middle name. She has a regular, whole, two-syllable first name. It means grace—an admirable trait to possess. In the same vein as beauty, elegance. My name means meadow, or clearing. An area of land cleared from woods. It's literally a lack of woods. A lack of something. Of course, I know for certain my parents didn't think too deeply about our names and their meanings, so I don't take this glaring difference personally. But, if one were to psychoanalyze the situation, one might conclude that a certain twin's inferiority complex, supposing she had one, is rooted in her name. (Of course, nobody is doing that!)

But what, in general, is with the questioning, the doubting, of a person’s name—especially when they tell you and they show you it’s their name? I must admit now that I’m not immune to such inquisitiveness. I have a cousin named Jenny and, being ever the correcting person I am, even as a child, I told her once that her full name had to be Jennifer; she said it wasn't, it was Jenny. She was older, so I knew she wouldn't lie. I had to accept this uncomfortable fact that challenged my assumption.

More recently, I encountered a man at the grocery store whom I’d just seen at the gym a while earlier, so we recognized each other and made introductions and I told him my name and he told me his: Flex. I paused, having the desire to both laugh and ask what his real name was but somehow found the composure to hold both in, and he, cognizant of my pause, said, “Like the muscle,” and flexed his biceps to make sure I understood. At a loss for appropriate words, I said, with too much enthusiasm, “I love it, it’s great!” A name is whatever you say it is, right?

***

As I was leaving the coffee shop where I was composing this post, the guy who'd taken my order earlier—a new person I'd not seen before, he said, "Bye, Lee, have a good afternoon." He'd remembered my name.

Mortified: The Podcast, My Diaries, and Being Vulnerable

A friend recently introduced me to a podcast called Mortified. I was instantly intrigued when she said it was about people reading diary entries from their adolescent years. Actually, it's not quite true to say I was instantly intrigued; my initial reaction was envy, or, dare I say, jealousy. After having gone through the process of rereading my lifetime of entries, minus a few years here and there when I was either too troubled or too content to write, I had been ruminating on the idea of creating not a podcast but a blog about funny, embarrassing, heart-wrenching pages of these diaries, and those belonging to other people (through a submission process). Of course, that blog never materialized, and this podcast did, and it’s amazing.

Around a year ago I rediscovered all my diaries and became engrossed in their content. It’s not that my life was so interesting; but the words that filled those pages back then really were quite prescient, considering the person I am now. I can see the early instances of self-doubt, of chastising myself for not being perfect (I have several interesting redactions, mostly about boys I said I liked at one point and later edited the entry to say how stupid they were), and of great sensitivity, which I saw only as a flaw and not as the gift I’m able to see it as today. Granted, it has taken many years of frustration and effort to understand first that there’s an actual classification for a “highly sensitive person” and second that there’s nothing wrong with that type of person. It’s hard not to wonder how my diary entries—and therefore my self-perception, my life—might have been different had I understood more about myself early on.

Recently my twin sister and I brought our first diaries to a dinner to share with each other. It was the same diary, a hardcover in a floral cloth wrap, except hers was dark blue with white flowers, mine red with purple flowers. Our aunt gave them to us during a visit back to Ohio after we’d moved away to Florida. We were 10. Because we are twins and experienced life much in the same way in those early years, we wrote about many of the same events (or, oftentimes, non-events). These diaries are the most amusing because of our perspectives on what was important in life and how we tried to capture that importance. We laughed for hours. Knee-slapping, tear-jerking, breath-holding laughter.

My first diary.

Names have been obscured to protect the innocent.

But in reading these stories, and hearing those shared on Mortified, under the melodrama about crushes and BFFs and family, I noticed a tangible vulnerability that occasionally made my smile fade, momentarily. Oh. That wasn’t very funny. I kind of felt for him or her or me. That child was hurting. Did they get help? I had so little understanding about my own feelings for so long; even though I had adequate language to describe how I was feeling, I didn't always know what the underlying causes were, or how to help myself feel better when I was sad or angry or frustrated. Perhaps that is just part of adolescence.

For me, the irritability continued until I broke down in my senior year of high school, unable to bear the weight of my emotions, of the pressure I felt to be perfect and the disappointment of always falling short. Only because I broke down, and because some concerned adults who knew me and noticed my changed behavior and appearance, did I get help. Anyway, my hope is that kids don't feel they have to suffer alone so much, so privately. I know it's idealistic to think that, 20 years later, we have better tools, more access to information, better communication, less stigma so that we, as a society, can catch and address such issues. But I fear we've tipped the scale of useful information and have only perpetuated the harmful illusions of happiness and perfection with things like social media and "advice" books and online forums. And blogs.

I still hope they write, today’s kids. Lest anyone think I’ve traded in private diaries for this public blog, rest assured there’s plenty I still keep private, in a paper journal that I write in with a pen. I don’t find all the answers to my troubles through journaling, but I do find I have better self-awareness and, in the best of times, improved perspective on a situation that I might have been looking at with tunnel vision. So I still do it. Plus, I want to have something to look back on 10 and 20 years from now, when I may need to piece my life together, in my head. Something else I’ve learned from looking back at some of my diary entries is that my memory is skewed. Not only do I misremember the way a life event happened or how it made me feel, I also forget that certain things ever occurred. Particularly the positive things. And there were lots.

Obligatory New Year’s Resolutions 2018

Some people love to mock new year’s resolutions. They’re trite, meaningless, overhyped and underperformed. Part of a self-improvement movement that we all foolishly buy into. But to these cynics I say, way to crush the ambitions of millions of people seeking to better themselves through the resources available to them. I get it. The problem is that a whole industry exists based on making people feel like they're not good enough. And sure, some of those resources are a bunch of quackery, books or programs designed by people with professional credentials hoping to make money off of others' struggles and insecurities—issues that they themselves probably don't have and never will. And that's unfortunate.

But some are based on empirical research, or they simply are motivating, quackery or not. And if that inspires someone toward positive action, good! People can read what they want into the you'll-never-be-good-enough message; I think there's a delicate balance. For me, I know there will always be ways I can improve—expand my mind, gain new and different experiences, challenge myself physically, and develop all-around healthier habits. I know there will always be room to improve because I know I'll never be perfect. I rather like the idea that I have little (or big) areas to work on in perpetuity, to see what kind of a difference I can make in my life and, hopefully, others'.

Research shows that, the more realistic and specific a goal is, the more achievable it is (also a source of contention for critics, in that we can measure our self-improvement "to death"). If I have never had a running habit and I set out to run three marathons by the end of the year, I may not be successful. Is it achievable? Sure. People have done far crazier things. But I’d question the point of it: am I trying to prove that I can do something big, or am I trying to fulfill a longheld desire to become a distance runner, and sustain that habit? It’s not for me to judge which is a “better” ambition, but if the former is the case, maybe you just have that type of personality and will achieve your goal, but then what? Was it meaningful? (Does it matter?) If the latter ambition is driving you, perhaps tempering your first-year goal would prove more successful and offer more meaning in the end—and in the years to come. What I’m getting at is, do you want to achieve something for 2018, or for 2018 and beyond?

But I understand the “I want great things now” mentality. We’re all susceptible to delusions of grandeur, and I tend to be extreme in my own ambitions. But haste often makes waste, as the story goes, and I’ve learned that I would prefer to have the fulfillment that comes with achieving goals that stick year after year than the fleeting satisfaction of a one-time-achieved goal.

And with that rant out of the way, I’m happy to say that I love to make resolutions. I learn from each year’s goals and try to tweak them for better success the next year. So here are my moderately set goals for 2018, in random order, designed more for optimal achievement than for ultimate glory.

1. Learn to do a flip turn. I’ve been lap-swimming for several years now, and I have yet to learn this skill that would make my laps so much more efficient. I’d really prefer to have someone teach me, i.e, hold my hand (not literally because that would be dangerous), but I may not have that opportunity, so that means watching and re-watching YouTube videos and just taking the plunge. 
2. Double my cycling mileage. While I’m glad to be riding regularly again, I’m in a rut with my typical 13.5-mile loop from home. It’s a convenient route, if not a scary one, as I ride alongside road traffic for most of the way. Adding on another seven miles is doable, but it means more life-threatening traffic encounters and obnoxious honking and yelling from drivers who don’t know or don’t care about the bike/automobile traffic laws. The obvious solution is to abandon the convenience of riding from home, pack my bike up, and take it to a cyclist-friendly trail. So that is what I shall do. 
3. Adjust my eating habits. Specifically, cut back on eating after dinner, which I realize I do only because I’m bored or seeking comfort. Also, try more and new recipes. I find safety in routines and regularity, which means a lot of the same foods and meals daily, weekly, monthly. Not only am I missing out on a lot of other great foods, but I have discovered that cooking or preparing food soothes me and makes me feel happy and accomplished. And I've acquired some really great recipe books this past year, but I’ve barely made a dent in them. (Thug Kitchen, The Anti-Inflammatory Diet in 21, The Colorful Kitchen)
4. Run 10 miles. This goal has nothing to do with will and everything to do with feeling comfortable using my new feet, post-surgery. It’s also a big unknown. The goal could either be easily achievable within a few months or something I feel I want to take my time with throughout the year. The time frame for “total healing,” meaning all the swelling and discomfort from my surgeries will be done, is up to a year. So that means, at most, mid-July, one year from when my second foot was operated on. I’m already starting to weave running into my walks, but I’m not rushing the process. It’s hard, though, to have such a brief encounter with my old familiar friend and then have to depart with what feels like not enough time. But if I learned anything from the surgeries, it was patience. Lots of it. 
5. Develop a better nighttime routine. Some nights I’ve already been able to do this. It means shutting off the TV by 10pm; having my meals, work clothes, and workout attire prepped for the next day; getting into bed and writing a bit in my journal; and then reading something pleasurable until I can no longer keep my eyes open. 
6. Practice mindfulness. This one’s tricky to be specific about because I don’t want to narrow the scope of things I could be more mindful about, but I also realize that to say “practice mindfulness” is huge and vague. So I’ll try to add some specificity: be more mindful about eating, in times of heightened anxiety, and in my social media use. In particular I want to recognize when I’m mindlessly eating, worrying, or scrolling through feeds, and then be able to, without judging or berating myself, focus my attention elsewhere or do something more productive. This one’s pretty big on my list. 
7. Continue reading for pleasure. After many years of putting “read more” on my lists of resolutions, I’ve finally been able to get back into a reading habit that I enjoy. I’m enamored by all the interesting stories out there, and I feel more enriched as a person for learning about people’s different perspectives of the world. And I’m simply entertained. 
8. Consume fewer material things. I’ve realized that, in times when I’m feeling low or just bored, I gravitate toward shopping. I would by no means consider myself a “shopaholic”; I have neither the budget nor the appetite for that particular classification, and I’m already turned off enough by the times I recognize I’ve bought things I don’t need. However, I do buy things I don’t need, and this is neither a sustainable nor a healthy habit. Luckily I’ve discovered an awesome clothing resale shop that allows me to consign or donate the clothes I don’t need and buy what I do need, second-hand. Because of the shop’s successful model, it regularly has “new” items and the clothes are fashionable enough for me. I'm far more concerned with being comfortable, so if I don't look bad, great! If I actually look nice, bonus! 
9. Move more. Dedicating time to daily exercise is not really a struggle for me; however, outside of that hour-long window, my life is pretty sedentary. I sit at a desk all day for work, and I tend to “relax” a lot after dinner, which essentially means lying around and watching shows. Or I’m studying, another sedentary activity. It's during the sedentary times that my mind is more prone to a tailspin. I know there are many benefits to moving more consistently throughout the day—physical, psychological, emotional. Sometimes it’s easy, when I have chores I need to do—laundry, cleaning, cooking—and these are things I can sprinkle throughout the weekday evenings to keep me from over-relaxing. Work is the harder challenge, but I have options I can take better advantage of. I have a workstation that can accommodate both sitting and standing. This became available to me right after my foot surgeries, so I have not made much use of it, as I needed to avoid being on my feet for a while to aid in recovery. But it’s about time I start using the standing option, even if just for 15 minutes here and there throughout the workday. I also rarely take a lunch break. Outside of my office is a quite beautiful walkway along the water, perfect for a lunchtime stroll. I know this because I used to do it; but again, surgeries. Time to revisit the walkway. 
10. Volunteer. I’ve known for some time that this would solve some of my ongoing struggles, like feeling disconnected from people and a general lack of purpose. But finding the right opportunity has been difficult. I thought I’d found the perfect one with the Guardian Ad Litem program—being a court advocate for foster children who don’t have an official guardian to speak up for them—but it requires more time than I would be able to dedicate right now. Perhaps when I’m not in grad school I’ll revisit this option. But for now I’m looking for something I can do for just one or two hours a week, at most, that directly involves helping people. Ideally I’d work with children, but I’m open to helping any people who could benefit from my time. I remain vigilant, but I welcome suggestions from anyone who might know about specific opportunities in Tampa. 

If you are the type to make resolutions or set goals for the year, I wish you the utmost success! If you're not, kindly don't rain on my parade.

Post 1

For close to a decade, I maintained a blog about running (and fitness and wellness generally). But for the past several years it seemed I was writing more about injuries than activities. And this past year I chronicled my foot surgeries, which was a sort of breaking point (no pun intended ... well, maybe) in my running career, a time when I'd be forced to press pause for at least six months, more if I wanted to be extra cautious. And while I plan to be back on the pavement very soon, I'm not yet sure how much, how far, how fast I’ll be able to run. These are answers I'll only arrive at over time.

Why, then, at this moment, would I abandon that blog? I think I recognized the tenuousness of running in particular, and of bodies and sports more generally. My challenges over the years with trying to remain staunchly dedicated to a single activity caused me to feel disappointed and discouraged each time I was sidelined from that activity. And although that adversity led me to other things to focus my attention on, like swimming, biking, yoga, I didn't want to wrap my identity up in those things, too, the way I had with running. Because once you lose the one major thing you think defines you, you truly are lost. Your social life, if it is tied to that thing, as mine was, changes; your sense of accomplishment and pride falters; your body perception, if it is also wrapped up in that thing, as mine was, is warped; your purpose in life becomes questionable.

So I struggled in the last few years of writing that blog—struggled to find new meaning for myself, to make myself relevant in a world where relevance for mid-thirty-year-olds was defined by things I did not have: marriage (or any relationship that could have possibly led me there), children, career fulfillment, meaningful social contribution. I worked on self-development and improvement, branching out into swimming and biking athletically and trying piano lessons and grad school for personal gratification (everything stuck except the piano lessons).

In trying to decide what to focus my next blog on, I wanted to choose something that wouldn't be too restrictive (lesson learned) but that still said something about me, who I essentially am. Well, I am an editor by trade, and while there is no guarantee that will always be the case, the personality trait that led me to editing—perfectionism—will always be an inherent part of me, for better or worse. As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve had to accept that perfect doesn’t exist, and life cannot be edited. So this will be the space where I allow myself to write about the areas and experiences in my life that perhaps aren't what I expected or wanted them to be—the ugly, the awkward, the uncomfortable, but the very real. Occasionally I’ll even write about the positive! Here I will write my life without edits.