vintage enamel flower pins brooches. (via bitsandbobbins)

Yedei is my creative, introspective, self-loving being. It’s also my middle name.

When I was younger, I hated the name Yedei. In part because it was unusual and I never particularly liked standing out. I also despised it because it was the one thing that identified me as my estranged father’s child. I didn’t know him, and I didn’t appreciate being named after his mother.

As I’ve gotten older, Yedei has gotten much easier to love; my mother doesn’t call me by my whole name when she’s mad anymore. I appreciate its uniqueness now; no one else has it. I don’t know the literal meaning of Yedei, so I created my own meaning for it. Yedei is everything I never knew that I had in me: compassion, patience, creativity, boldness, thoughtfulness, wisdom and beauty.

I’m loving the person I’m shaping up to be in becoming Yedei.