Where everybody knows your name

Names have power.
I firmly believe this.

We're encouraged to wear name tags at work.
Yeah.
Mine is at my desk.

You have members of the community that you really don't want to know your name speaking to you with a familiarity reserved for decade-old friends and family.
Sir.
Excuse me.
You DO NOT know me.
Step.

Or the time a gentleman asked me my name while I was working on the floor, and I told him.
No, I most certainly didn't want to.
Then the asshat went to the front desk and threw my name out like I referred him for the job posted.
Oh, I was so displeased.

I'll answer to Ma'am.  Miss.  Crystal.  Chrys.  Various other names from family and offspring.  Mimi to grandson.
But there is an intimacy in a name.  Your identity and experience are tied all up in there.

I'm often asked why I kept "Inman" as my last name after the divorce.  Quite simply, all my children have that last name.  And I wanted to keep THAT tie even though I severed the one with their father. So I'm building my professional career on a name that I married into and divorced out of.

That is what's important to me.  And it's a name that my children can now be proud of having.

Grins*