Inside My Head At 3am

My Name

(A/N: This is part of an English assignment about the personal meaning of my name I just finished, and I really like this part)

Elizabeth has been a name adopted by female royalty for centuries. Listening to my full name said aloud transports me to a lavish sitting room with arsenic-laced walls and ivory cushions and dark wood floors. The smell of musty, unused rooms floods my senses, and the feeling of a temperature just cold enough to be uncomfortable runs over my skin.

My full name puts a certain tightness in my spine, as if I've been sitting with pristinely perfect posture for a preposterously long period of time. It feels too pretty. Too posh.

Liz.

Now that sounds better.

Liz sounds unique, but not unusual. Liz is the name of a girl who has a dream, an ambition, and isn't afraid to make it a reality.

When I hear "Liz," I am not taken to another place. I do not smell anything but the world around me. I do not feel anything on my skin besides the sweatshirt I always wear. Liz is comfortable, but never complacent.

Liz is anxious, self-critical, perfectionistic, inquisitive, ambitious, musical, logical, rational, and considerate to a fault, but Liz would be none of those things without me.