"I Can Be Anyone…

….I Want To Be!"

That is what I was told when I was 18 years old...by my parents!

I was the gypsy of the family, with the desire to be different, to experience new places, new things the world had to offer! Every time Dad came home telling us about some foreign place he could take a job…..mentally, my bags were packed and I was ready to go come nightfall.

My dreams would carry me into the unknown places I would get to discover.

I would be as energized about the possibilities, as I was as a young child on Christmas eve!

I always made plans! Envisioned the adventure in grandiose ways!

Dad would always turn the jobs down.
My gypsy days were only to remain in my visions, my heart.

It was the spring of my senior year and Mom and Dad were making hasty preparations to move to Italy with my younger sister.

My Dad had finally accepted a job transfer, overseas! They would leave in July!
Upon receiving birth certificates for everyone in the family, as there was no point in getting only the three necessary ones for those who were moving, Mom felt that we should all have ours, for our own files.
Mine came, with a shock to my parents, with a strange excitement for me!
On the line where the given birth name is supposed to be printed, this line said:
“Baby Girl" Strong

They had forgotten to name me!

For 18 years, I was known as (what y’all know me as..)“WOW”.
My school records, doctor records and my Baptism certificate all claimed me as “WOW”.

My family, my friends, and heck, even myself…knew me as “WOW”.

Could it be that in my parents excitement to get me home from the hospital, it was an oversight?
Or…
Was it a subconscious knowledge they had, that I was going to be different than the other siblings, and that with a certain passage of time, the opportunity would be presented to them with a proper name for me?
(I am,after all, the only one of us four with dark brown hair, the shortest, the smallest feet, and the only lefty…..JUST like my Mom!)
Or…
Did they know somehow, that with my arrival...in such an untimely manner, I would bring to them~ the most obstinate, most independent child of all? I would present them with a behavior pattern that would try their hearts, keep them on their toes? Maybe they thought, they would let the clocks tick by…until the day came for them to set me ‘free’ and tell me…

“I can be anyone…
….I want to be!”

You see, so many years ago…on what I call my official Thanksgiving Day…
I blessed my parents, and the world, with my presence! (or maybe that should say 'cursed"..??)
I rudely & abruptly interrupted their traditional Thanksgiving gathering…
Mom did not get to enjoy all of her labor intense, delicate and artful preparations for the Turkey feast of the day! (And they even ran out of gas on their way to the hospital!)

Around 4:47 pm, that Thanksgiving Day (way back when)…I introduced myself ~in a defiant way…

A trait I’ve carried around proudly throughout my travels in life!

Leave it to me to begin what was to become years of stubborn, autonomous chaos!

I have been Thankful everyday of my life...that on that Thanksgiving Day so many years ago, I was blessed with my given life!

My folks? Blessed that day?.....I know they love me!

Yes...I kept the same name that I had bestowed on me for 18 years...I couldn't come up with anything better! Besides..."WOW" was Me!

Because today is my Thanksgiving Day...and I noticed, my 100th post (wow!) ...to all my new friends, my wonderful new family, whether by name, by lurker, by anonymous…
I hear by send you the warmest hug and thank you for sharing in my life!