Boogie, Spike & other reinventions

We were supposed to be getting ready to go out. Toby and I were jostling for mirror space in front our single pedestal bathroom sink, laughing and chatting about the random thoughts flying through our heads as we primped.

“So how did you get the nickname, Boogie?” he asked.

“Well, originally it was a much more elaborate name: Bee-buga-boogula. Then, my dad decided the name was too long, so it became Boogie, for short.” I went on to share my father’s penchant for placing extravagant nicknames on his family: mom was “Wee-wonkus”, my little brother, Roger, was knighted “Podjo”, and my sister Debbie originally answered to “Dingle-berry”. (Until it was discovered that this was slang for fuzz caught in unmentionable areas of the body. Then her name became, “Dingle-flossie”; or “Flossie” for short.)

When I asked about my husband’s childhood names, I was shocked to learn that he missed out – although he did recall the need to develop one. Apparently, he and his two sisters decided they needed aliases, and after much discussion, Kacey became “Booboo”, Keri became “Bobo”, and Toby selected “Bubba”. (So much for creativity.) However, much to their dismay, none of the names really took off.

The challenge of the renaming venture came in convincing others to call him, “Spike”. (Once preteen wisdom kicked in, he saw the need to shift from Redneck names to Thug names). However, it’s hard to shift from “Toby” (he never made it to "Bubba") to “Spike” without orally tripping; you can’t just ease into it. Besides, nicknames are not to be picked out by one’s self – they are deemed upon us by those around us. We are at the mercy of other’s choices for our pseudo-identity. Suddenly requesting to be called, “Wasatooatay”, “Moose”, or “Zsa Zsa” is presumptuous and odd, if not a sign of unhappiness, insecurity or instability at best.

Later, as we were riding home from our evening out, my mind wandered back to the bathroom discussion, and an entirely different question arose: At what point in our lives do we first feel the need for reinvention? How is it that a ten-year old can determine the path his life has been on, picture the prospective future, and feel the need to make a direction change toward “Spike”?

As we meander through our lives, there are times when we desperately feel the need to escape from our identity into a more dramatic, elusive, subdued, or otherwise reverse persona. While this is normal and often short-lived, how does a person determine if the need for change is a healthy one or merely an attempt to run? Can we misinterpret escape as being freedom? Is it possible that our attempts to become someone new are merely relocating the original self? How can we ensure that our change is the real deal, and not merely a nicknamed guise or façade change?

I believe it is wise to evaluate our identity on a frequent basis, and determine if where we are headed is truly the direction we desire to be. It is in doing this that we can appreciate the places we’ve experienced and the life we’ve lived, and begin to understand how it contributes to our existence. The challenge in changing who we are is to understand that our past remains static and solidified in existence; what has occurred cannot be relived or revised. However, how we chose to interpret and apply it to our future is ours to determine.

Embracing who we have been with who we are today, develops honest and whole changes – increasing the probability for effectiveness and permanency. It is in the marriage of our past, present, and future, that we do not reinvent, but redirect. In this we do not become a reverse personality or 180 of our nature, but rather a unique blend of our history, our truest self, and our hopes and dreams for the future.

“Spike”? Probably not. “Tobias the Crusader”? Now, that’s a possibility.