What's in a Name? Poem

Do you ever think about your name? What it means? In relation to your place in this world, or your destiny, or just your personality? Sometimes I think about this. My name is Anne Marie.

Anne means "grace". Supposedly Marie means "beloved". So my name is supposed to mean "graceful and beloved".

But you know what? I'm hardly graceful, and not very appreciated. Most people look at me and just don't care. They walk past. I'm just like everyone else, what unique qualities could my soul bring to anything?

Where in this person's heart is love and connection and peace?

I don't know. That's what they will say, and think, and believe.

I know who I am though, and I know my worth.

I know my value, and why I should be appreciated. I don't ask for much, just respect, appreciation. If you admire me, that's wonderful and I appreciate that too, but that's not what I'm after.

You see, Anne Marie, to me, means many different things. Things that I cannot fully convey in words. It takes a lot of patience, courage, and resilience to be me. I have faced many hardships and battles in my life. Just when I think I have endured the worst, here I am again back at square one. My inner voice says to me "stop fighting this, or you'll never learn." But I'm so afraid of hurting someone else, and so I feel held back. I do everything I can to push back against my intuition, even thought most of the time, I am right.

It kind of feels like a blessing and a curse to have good intuition. It means that you can see things, you can visualize and understand the larger picture, and the possible outcomes of situations. You can predict how things will go based on feeling alone. You can see people's souls, and if they are working for the greater good, or to do harm. I have these things that sometimes I don't know exactly how to use, but they are my gifts. I think one of those is communication. I have a way of communicating that I think is different than the way a lot of people do.

On the other hand, confidence is something else I am lacking in. I think you are supposed to learn when you are a kid how to be confident, but I don't think I ever truly learned how to be that way. Your parents are supposed to instill confidence in you to achieve your dreams, they are supposed to believe in you, and believe that whatever you set your mind to, can be achieved. But the thing is, Anne Marie was told different.

Anne Marie, graceful and beloved, was told that most people don't get to live their dreams, and that we just had to choose a life that was shitty but not terribly shitty. That doesn't seem like a good life to me. Yet, it is the life I have lived. Controlled by the thoughts of others, being told what to do and how to live my life, when I simply just wanted to show the world that I am brave and resilient. That I can do big things and inspire other people, and help the world. My family scoffed at this.

How could Anne Marie think that she could go out into the world and do something to change it? That's insane. It will never happen. Good luck to me, cause they wouldn't support it. I asked my parents when I was seventeen if I could join the Peace Corps and go to Africa to help people. They scoffed at that, they acted like that was the stupidest thing on earth I could ever do, because it's impossible or something. They said I had to go to college. I remember running up to my room, crying, crying because I couldn't do what my heart was telling me to at seventeen! I cried because I couldn't go to Africa and help the people there. This was back in 2007, mind you. Now, I'm here, 36, still wishing to be a light for the world, and still feeling stuck. So, I can't say that the meaning of my name has really accurately represented the person that I am, because I think I am much more.

Now, I think I'm at the point in my life, where I want to stop believing these people around me that barely support my ambitions, only care when they have to, and don't listen to me. I'm tired of being around people that don't care about my thoughts and feelings. I want to be somebody important and I want to do important things. So, that is me, that is Anne Marie. I am a woman that yearns to create, to love, to change, to help, to light the way. That's my goal.

Throughout all that, though,

I think I can be graceful, too.

and beloved.