Names in space and time.

I have been re-named, re-christened, re-born, resurrected (Oops not really the right time of year for that one!)

My friend at blogbs5 has started calling me Suburbia. I quite like the sound of it, so I'm trying it on for a while.

My previous post name was Billy and was assigned to me when I was about 14. I used to have a Saturday job at a local hairdressers. I earned £4 a day (no one had heard of the minimum wage then) and worked for the owner (who was my friends mum) who can only be described as a dragon! She may have been bleached, manicured and quaffed (a divorcee with the overdone 'all woman' look!) but beneath she was still all dragon at heart. The other girls (stylists, in hairdresser speak) were Gina, whose husband regularly threatened her, or some one else with a knife (no one mentioned domestic violence in those days either) and Helen, odd and devoid of character, poor thing!

I worked from 8.30am to 6 and 'perched' to eat lunch for about 10minutes during the designated time (never actually at lunch time, if we were busy then Dragon was on the case!). The constant washing of hair gave me dermatitis, and the standing would have given me varicose veins, if I had been older! My parents laughed when I arrived home hardly able to stand! (well I was a teenager).

I was christened during this time, by Gina. Billy rhymed with a sort of shortening of my 'given' name, which I've always hated. So I gladly became Billy. All my friends at school eventually knew me as that and even now I still sign birthday and Christmas cards to my mum by that name. When I met husband, though, he found it difficult to think of me as Billy because he had a male friend who went by the same name. The thought of me as Billy didn't 'do' much for him, so I returned (sadly) to my more boring incarnation. I moved to Bristol as a non-Billy, so I now don't really have any friends that ever knew me as such. For a while I mourned my former self.

However bs5 (thanks by the way!) has nudged me into a new transformation! I was, after all christened Billy in my teens. Is it still suitable?! No I think not. Suburbia sounds more grown up, refined even!!! (Little do they know!) So excuse me if I have confused you through my comment posts. I am the same me. Only with a new and sophisticated persona.You can judge over time if it fits! Meanwhile I am hugging it to myself like a new blanket.