The subject of names came up recently during an office discussion about new babies, and it brought back some disquieting memories about some pretty unflattering nicknames I had while growing up. The origin of the most common one assigned was easy to understand. No one knew better than me what my mouth looked like. My overbite was much more pronounced back then (or perhaps I’ve just finally gotten used to it) but it, along with other aspects of my anatomy inspired more than one (almost) cruel moniker. It wasn’t only physical traits that inspired these less than kind nicknames. Personality had something to do with it as well. I wasn’t the easiest person to live with growing up and I’m probably still a “difficult case” at times. But Mom came up with a nickname that, while denigrating in word, was always spoken as an endearment. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it felt. She and Dad had a thing for the letter “d.” All five Carlson kids’ names begin with d so it isn’t surprising that this endearing denigration is the alliteration “d—-, dumb, dippy Dawn.” Kinda rolls right off the tongue, doncha’ think?
In any case, by the time eighth grade rolled around, I was pretty well sick and tired of other people picking my nicknames. They were never flattering, or cute, like “Sugar” or “Toot” or typical, like Katy for Katherine, Deb for Deborah or Nic for Nicole. I mean what could you reasonably do with “Dawn”? Daw? Da? See the problem? So, just before school started way back when, I decided to give myself a nickname. I decided I would be Corey. But how was I going to get people to call me that? It was a dilemma, to be sure. I mulled it over in my mind, trying on one explanation after another — knowing the truth was just a little too “odd” and I’d get a new nickname out of it all right — but certainly not the one I wanted. And so I, shall we say, manufactured a “summer friend.” This summer friend and I were inseparable throughout the long days of sunshine, until tragedy struck. (You knew there had to be tragedy in the story, something that would evoke sympathy and add credibility.) Suffice it to say I came up with what I determined to be a fairly believable and heart-wrenching story to explain my new name, and began using it on my school work. I even had my teachers call me by that name. (Was I ever relieved when Mom let it pass, no doubt recognizing a phase when she saw one. She never heard the fabricated history behind the nickname, and thankfully never asked.) It was a long year. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was tired of Corey and had trouble keeping straight the stories I had told and who I had told what.
That’s only one problem with lies. This one was relatively harmless — to everyone except me — I stressed over it for that entire school year and then, with relief, just let the memory fade over the following summer, becoming Dawn, once again. In fact, I seldom think of the year I was Corey — just telling the story raises a blush.
What a corner I had backed myself into that year. How much back-pedaling I went through when some sharpie would point out a hole in my story or, someone else, sympathy running full bore, would seek more information, so as to be more sympathetic. It isn’t uncommon to be dissatisfied with your life, especially when you’re in the eighth grade. People who want to turn back the hands of time seldom want to return to that time of confusion, disillusion and embarrassment. A problem arises however, if in your dissatisfaction with your life, you decide to fabricate a new one. Or, perhaps you choose merely to embellish the highs and the lows — a difficult home life made into a horror story of abuses that never were, accomplishments that were nothing more than dreams. These fabrications come back to haunt you — especially when the people who hear the stories encounter the players in real life, and the two simply don’t jive. What a dilemma deception becomes. A seemingly apt answer at the time it is spoken, solving a problem in the immediate, or gaining a needed sympathy for a season, it becomes a curse, a hounding curse that must be fed more and more lies to survive — because if the truth ever comes out, the pile of lies that fall from it will surely crush and destroy.
I eventually confessed the misdeed to those who wouldn’t let the matter drop. I received the raised eyebrow response and little else by way of recrimination. I use my imagination now as a tool to amuse, not to deceive. The truth is much easier to track than a lie. Truth never changes. I don’t remember what else I may have learned in the eighth-grade, but this lesson survived the test of time and has proven trustworthy.
“Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.” Proverbs 23:23 (NIV)
— Dawn Cribbs is a lot less concerned now with nicknames, and wonders sometimes, what her new name will be when all things are made new.
