The Power of Names

I have changed the past through altering the future ... an act many thought impossible.

History may not remember my name, and people may only remember one of my names. My name is not actually that important. Certainly not to me, anyway. Well, not until recently.

Others seem to hold on to names more than the owner, this almost makes sense as they are the ones who use it more often in some respect.

All my life I felt as if mine didn’t quite ‘fit’ if that makes sense?

Makes sense to me now of course.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t, it should do soon enough.

Names are interesting things though, they hold a certain power - when others say yours, when you’re given one, when you willingly tell someone your name. But I have found the most powerful name is the one you give yourself and how you use it against yourself.

If you’ve ever called yourself an ‘idiot’ or ‘stupid’, you know what I mean.

Having now chosen my name, I find it holds a very special power indeed. The power to make me vanish … and at the same time the power to reveal me in a new, more complete way than before. Revealing everything that is inside in the most astounding way.

Those other names we call ourselves, going back to that for a moment. Those names have so much power that we don’t often understand it in the moment. Their power is often negative though. ‘Loser’, ‘Idiot’, ‘Stupid’, ‘Waste of Space’. These names and more can destroy us from within if we aren’t careful.

People like me get enough of this negativity externally. We have been, and still are called all manner of things. Growing up, all I ever heard about people like me was bad … Actually, horrible things. So I kept it a secret, pushed it down, and tried to pretend it wasn’t true. All while internalising all those negative things I heard. Eventually I started to believe I was, as people were saying, some sort of ‘freak’ or wicked and ‘corrupt’.

Living for years in shadow and shame took its toll - I hid well. Too well in many ways. I almost became just like all the people around me, absorbing that level of negativity for so long leaves a mark. I refused to accept the truth for so very long. But now I have, so many memories and regrets float around my mind in continual motion. Never leaving … never stopping.

So I decided to go back …

Access to the technology was hard, and it cost everything I had for just twenty-four hours of usage time. I would have to use it wisely …

I went back …

Back to the frightened little kid who couldn’t understand why they weren’t fitting in with all the others they were meant to. Leaving a note to warn of an imminent event.

I went back to the day the adolescent me first tried to unlock their true name and power. Delaying those that would catch and punish them for something they had no control over.

I went back as much as I could, whenever I thought it would be helpful, using the whole time allotment. To try and save the younger versions of me. But it always played out the same way, events that become the reason to go back cannot be altered beyond minor, barely noticeable changes. All those times and events slowly becoming time-locked. Trapped in the past as all memories are, unable to be changed by new understanding or knowledge.

Of course that wasn’t actually real, there is no such technology, these thoughts and wishes are nothing more than the ghosts of the past trying to destroy the future with their wicked torments. Their vile feelings of the inevitability of the world and that I had as little control over the present as I did over things long since past.

The past could change nothing, but the future … The future was still under my control and power. That advancement had at least been discovered and could be utilised. A daily tablet that allowed one to live in an altered timeline, to change the very fabric of your own personal future.

I made the decision ...

Today is the day I change everything, not in the past. But from this day onwards. Everything will change for the better. This is the only path for me now as far as I can see. The beginning will be hard, there will be loss and pain. Yet, with every day I hope for more and more joy, and something I never thought possible for myself before … happiness in day to day life.

As I take that first tablet, knowing it sets into motion everything I’ve ever wanted for years and years, I cannot help but sense what tomorrow and all the days to follow may bring with them.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow …"

Of the people I used to know, there will be a great divide. There are those that will not speak to me when they know I changed the future. Claiming I have fallen or am confused and lost. But more important are those that do see me as I am now and will be with the altered timeline, those who see me as myself, my real self. These people speak to me, engage with me, and treat me the same as they ever did. The truth has had no effect on them. Only one minor change between them and me now … the name they call me.

They call me the name I chose, returning the power of my name back to me for the first time ever. This new future, this new timeline giving me the power of my own name for the first time ...

Funny thing ... the power of names.