Junior
That’s my….name?
From the very first memory, I can remember as a child, my family called me Junior.
I quickly believed that was my first name — because I heard it every day in the mobile home I grew up at in North Carolina (until I was 15).
Then when I would see my aunts, uncles & cousins, they would call me Junior too, which only strengthen my belief that Junior was my first name.
‘’Junior…come here! Junior…wash your face! Junior…go to bed!’’ Junior junior junior, all day. It wasn’t until I started going to school in kindergarten, that I would learn that Junior wasn’t my first name. The first time the teacher did roll call, she called out Gerald. I looked at the other kids wondering which one was Gerald.
‘’That wasn’t me she was calling’’ I thought.
Later on in class. We get a kindergarten assignment, and I see the name Gerald at the top. I was wondering ‘’Who’s this Gerald kid? My name is Junior.’’
As kindergarten went on, I was started to think that I had a new first name as Gerald. At home, I was Junior, and at school, I was Gerald. It was like, I was a superhero with two different lives.
Then one day, it would finally make sense to me why I was being called both Gerald and Junior. I would get to see my (almost) full name which was Gerald…
