This Road of Mine

The day before yesterday I was in Whole Foods and happened upon a card that asked, "If you didn't know how old you were, how old would you be?" I thought about it for a couple of seconds before I told my friend that I would be 12 years old. She said that she thinks she is five. I spent that day and many days after that thinking about if 12 was really my age. Yes! I kind of remember being 12. 12 was when I started thinking. Oh gosh, it's true, I was always an analytic type. Thinking, thinking, wondering, imagining. Still, with all that thinking, life amazed me completely.  That growing, maturing thing drove me insane. Oh what will I grow to be? Will I be pretty, smart, liked, rich? I must say that at that time, I was most concerned with being pretty. Hey, I was a girl in America. At that age, I obsessed about the future size of my breast. Would they be like the girls on television or in those magazines my brothers had under their beds? Would they stay all flat

Unusual spelling.   Why two n's and two e's?   Why Donniee?  Are you sure it's not Dorothy?  Or Dotty?   Dolly?   I'm sure that's not the name they called you in high school.  Are you ashamed of your real name?   Who are you trying to be?  Well, I am not calling you Donniee.   It all kinda strange to me.  I was born, so I heard, Dorothena. But there's also a birth certificate with my name spelled Dorotheo.  My biological family swears its Dorothea.  I don't know guys, don't know what to make of all of this. Too bad I couldn't ask my mother, who died before I could ask her much of anything.  Like, WHAT-WAS-UP-WITH-YOU-LADY???  I wonder what she intended and what did she actually write down on some government paper or two. For my young life, I was indeed called Darlene. (Looked it up and it means darling). Well that's real deep.  And I guess I would accept it if I knew where it came from.  I found out I had a sister