Just Call Me Elizabeth
For my entire life, I've gone by Elizabeth. Not Liz, not Beth, not Eliza, not Liza, but Elizabeth. Nicknames weren't (and aren't) my thing. People always ask me if I go by anything else, and I'm very quick to answer, no, I don't. What's wrong with going by a long name? My name is pretty long. Including my middle name, it's 26 letters. Without my middle name, it's 17 letters. But I don't mind the length. The only gripe I've ever had with it has been bubbling it in on the SAT. I suppose shortening it for simplicity's sake might be nice, but all the diminutives of Elizabeth have never felt like me. As far as I can tell, there's a general expectation that all Elizabeths go by something else, hence why I'm always asked if I go by Elizabeth or not. So while there are plenty of people out there who share my name, most of them don't go by Elizabeth. In a weird way, I almost try to make myself an individual by going by the legal name I...