Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Halfway through sixth grade, I moved with my Mother from Syracuse, NY, to St. Louis, MO; and, in the process, I changed my name.

Originally I was christened Elizabeth Anne, but everyone called me by my middle name in the early years. It was only when I started school that the nuns felt bound to follow some proper protocol and call me Elizabeth. My report cards were all about Elizabeth A. It meant I responded one way to the adults at home and another to those who ruled the classroom. On the playground, I was Anne.

Then we moved. Somewhere in the plane over Ohio I decided I would tell everyone at my new school that my name was Kim, even if the nuns there still insisted on Elizabeth A. And so I did. My new friends didn’t question the discrepancy and assumed I’d been Kim for years. My Mother shook her head, but kept the secret.

I lived as Kim in St. Louis for three years before Mother moved on to the next job and I had to move with her. It was the most wonderful three years of my growing up. And to this day, whenever I talk with friends from that period, I am still Kim.

It’s odd, because I went back to being Anne the day we moved away.