My Namesake

I've been corresponding a lot these past weeks with strangers I've met online as I've been searching for housing. For the sake of Internet privacy, I've been signing my letters "Thomas" instead of "T.J.", and then introducing myself as Thomas when I go to places to actually take a look (as if the name makes a difference...I think I'm more worried about someone I know finding me...).

I've been signing off "Thomas" so much in e-mails, I've caught myself doing it in personal e-mails (to friends). I don't like that. "T.J." is unique and I always want it to be "T.J." I used to worry that as an adult I'd be forced to go by "Thomas" instead of "T.J."; it's more "grown-up" sounding. So I'm a little sensitive right now that I could acidentally be doing this, like it's an unavoidable fate that I slip into adulthood - that I cannot run from my destiny as a "Thomas".

Never!!!!

If I never write a will, I want this to be said now: make sure it says "T.J." on my tombstone. At a high school friend's college graduation party, after saying "Hello, T.J." her mom asked me, "Is it still T.J.?" That freaked me out, as if using intials as a name was just some childish foolishness that a stint at university would cure me of.

It's almost wasn't T.J....my mother's first choice was "Peter", but my father objected because I guess especially at the time "Peter" was a slang term for penis (e.g., "peter puller"). I'd be like naming a kid "Dick" today. You'd ruin him for life.

Also, as fate would have it, I was born on the day that the pope was shot, and my aunts were pushing hard for me to be named "John Paul" in commemoration. So, I was almost J.P....

But in the end my father won out; I was named "Thomas" after him and "James" after...I don't know, actually. It could be coincidence but his only brother's name is "Jim", probably from James. In my babybook, under the entry for the origion of my name, my mother wrote, "because daddy got his way."

I'm not sure if this story is true but my dad told me he lied to his father (my grandfather) on his deathbed by telling him that he would have be named "Edward" (my grandfather's name). So maybe I was almost Edward. Again, I'm not sure if that story was true, or if my dad was just screwing with my head. Probably both.