Keep Something To Yourself

Okay, okay, I admit it: My name is not Zenia. (That’s a derivative of my grandmother’s name--a woman who needed a Plan B if ever there was one.) Everything else on the blog is true, though all the names have been created to protect the inno… the people I’m writing about.

When I started this blog, I needed to be anonymous because, frankly, I was pretty disgruntled with the state of my situation. I needed to vent. I needed to work some things out. I knew I needed to “go There” but I didn’t know where “There” might be and I didn’t want to risk shocking or offending or embarrassing anyone along the way. But I didn’t want to censor myself, either. Where better than the blogosphere to be totally you…and be totally invisible?

It didn’t take long before I started to think about coming out. Invisibility is apparently not a cure for the identity loss I mention in my profile. (That's true, too.) So I did what I always do when I have to make a decision. I carefully weighed the pros and cons. Then I asked all my friends for advice.

Now, my circle includes a wide-ranging collection of minds, so I was not surprised that each gave a different reason for her answer. But ultimately each answer was the same: To a woman, they all said, “Keep it to yourself.”

Was it not yet ready for prime time? No, they said they appreciated the premise. They praised the writing. But they knew it was mine—and they encouraged me to have something of my own.

Indeed, these passages are about having a room of one’s own—if only a virtual one. This blog (and perhaps every blog) is about having your own place—a place where you can just be yourself and speak your piece, without repercussions or self-incrimination or self-censoring. Without mincing your words or retracting your thoughts.

Ultimately, if it is to have any value beyond me, Plan B stops being just about me venting and plotting my escape from an unsatisfactory life. It’s about women (and men) taking control of their lives again.

A couple of months ago, when I wrote about “having your own” I had money on my mind. But I realize now that having your own is about more than what’s in your Birkin. It’s about owning something that no one has given you and that no one can take. It’s about having something that you hold in your heart that you value and love. It’s that thing you possess in full, with no co-signer. The stock market can’t crush it; the bank can’t foreclose on it; it can’t be outsourced, downsized, diminished, discounted or divorced.

This is the question that began Plan B: What do you have that is truly your own?
This is the question that each post asks and encourages us all to answer: What do you own that no one can take from you?

What I have is my name. And it isn’t Zenia. It’s Tamara.