Make believe, I apparently don't exist here in Spain...

When I was 12 I had four identities. That’s right four and I wasn’t even a secret spy! When you are in foreign language class in middle school, you get to select a new name for yourself.

 And psychologists wonder why children who learn a foreign language sometimes acquire a completely different and distinct identity in the second tongue!

Some might consider this the beginning of multiple personality disorder, but for our foreign language teachers it was a way to submerge us into the ….culture? Or perhaps there was a list of names and they only had to learn those 20 names for every student they ever had… Now that I think about it, I should do this with my 300 students! (Genius)

his name is my name too, whenever we go out, the people always shout, There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, NANANANNANANNAAA (anyone? no? ok)

Granted I work in Spain and therefore I can guess half the time Jorge, Maria or Alberto and someone will answer. Anyway…

So at 12, I was Myself, Yvette, Maria and Uschi. Yvette was my sexy French name, which explains why when I speak French I feel elegant and sexy. It doesn’t help that everyone in the US loves when someone speaks French, because French carries with it the connotation of being the language of loooove.

I typed Yvette in google image search. Bad idea. Everything was grotesquely inappropriate- so this is what you get... pervs....

Maria I hated, because I felt as if my original name was very unique and with this common name I was merely one of the one million Marias in the world. Also my middle name is Marie, therefore not good enough to be my first name and thus should never be my first name. 

Let's not kid ourselves here....

Uschi I carried with me for much more time as it became my future camp name when I worked at an all girl’s summer camp. It was unique, like my real name, and it was fun and weird, so I continued to use it for quite awhile. 

Apparently, Uschi is a dirty hooker name too, soooo we won't be posting that! Wow, how innocent I must be... Don't try this google search at home kids!

When I arrived in Spain I never realized how difficult my name actually was. In the US, I only had the issue that no one knew how to spell it, but in Spain… No one could even understand it to begin with! It’s not just pronouncing it that is a problem, it’s that it doesn’t sound like anything to them. To them my name is a conglomerate of weird sounds thrown together and therefore they can never remember it. So we, Cari and I, began contemplating what to call me. 

Hrmmmm... What should I call myse... HOLY SHIT where's my Abdomen!??!

Sitting at the pool, we ran into two of her neighbors. We found a bunch of ancient Spanish names that started with R and went from there. But, I didn’t want to be someone different in Spain, I merely wanted people here to know who I was. So, Cari’s neighbor simply- Spanishified my name. This means, she heard it once, we spelled it for her, and she told us how they would pronounce that strangely spelled word if it were Spanish.

And then there was Reili.............

And there my new name was born. Reili or Reiline pronounced in American (Ray-lee or Ray-lee-nay). So, finally, for the first time since I’ve been learning languages- I get to be me. Goodbye personality disorder! Hello coherent Raelynne... Reili?... Reiline? oh fuck....

Maybe we didn't beat it...