Hi, I’m Vivien

I didn’t like my name.  I wanted something more exotic sounding like Veronica or Alexandra and I had secretly hated my mother for giving this name to me.   I thought Veronica/Alexandra evokes a beautiful face and that was my initial goal in life: for people to find me physically beautiful just by hearing my name.  This was especially hard because in truth, I’m on the plainer side (not ugly mind you, just plainer) unlike my sister.

So I devised some ways to make myself more presentable.  I pretended to know everything.  Our neighbours called me Vivien the wise (because they thought I really was and for a time, I believed that I really am).  They show me card tricks (imagine a poor community where people gamble early in the morning, this was where I grew up) and they’d look at me with awe because I found out about the tricks (they weren’t really that hard).  I learned how to play mah-jong by just sitting behind my mother’s back peering over her mah-jong tiles.  When she realized that I could already comment about wrong tiles she’d mistakenly throw away she stopped bringing me to her sessions.  I didn’t mind.   I was 7 years-old then.

My father’s job as a driver brought him to other places and made him stay in these places (may have or may not have been with other women) longer than he would spend his time  at home.  My mother’s mah-jong sessions caused her to leave my sister and I at home alone late at night.  My sister had a world of her own.  So I was left to survive loneliness and being scared of being alone at night by counting until I hear the familiar footsteps outside, the unfastening of the door latch.  I learned the meaning of anticipation at a very young age.

One day during these forming years, I looked for the meaning of my name (in a dictionary borrowed from a neighbour).  It said Vivien means full of life (it was Vivienne really) which I took rather literally because I developed a signature laugh: a loud, boisterous cackling that made everyone think “ Oh, that’s Vivien” every time I produce the sound for something I found funny or even just remotely funny.  I’m sure some people thought that my laugh was annoying but just were too polite to say so (heck, I’d be annoyed too if I ever hear it again).  But my laughter meant I’m vivacious which is what my name stands for.  I didn’t know I can be lively without having to give off an unsubtle, attention-getter laughter.

Some years later, my mother told me the story behind my name.  The midwife (named after Vivien Leigh) who aided in my mother’s delivery was celebrating her birthday and specifically requested my mother to name me after her.  My mother said that she was a beautiful, young midwife –the very words that did it for me.  It was that simple.  I can be Vivien forever.

I was a dark, skinny kid from the Third World with a protruding stomach.  And I was named after a young, beautiful midwife who has the same birthday as me and was named after Vivien Leigh.  Life couldn’t be better.