National Football League

(Pre-Script: This post should be read as the song, " Undone," #40 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I have a lot in common with the NFL. Most specifically, we share a middle name, which is "Football."

Blink

Blink

This is not literally true. My middle name is literally Louise, but I looked up the meaning of Louise, and it means Female Warrior. And since I am a middle child, sandwiched between older and younger brothers, it was my destiny to live up to my middle name, which in my case meant nightly games of tackle football on the front lawn after dinner. So being roughly and loosely interpreted, my name which I lived up to actually means Michelle, the football female warrior.
I appreciate this now.

I did not appreciate it when I actually was a football wielding, grass stained multiple body bruised girl child running catch me if you can fast across the (football field) front lawn. In those days, I wanted a middle name that sounded like a middle name I liked the sound of. The acceptable middle names were Elizabeth, Marie, or even Lynne. But my mother had some crazy notion to bestow upon my bony identity the middle name she herself had been given, and which she herself had always hated. I will never understand the logic of this. All I can come up with is that she knew me better than I knew myself, then.
But now that I am a grown up, I know myself fairly well, most days. I like my middle name. And while it's true that I have never met anyone else who actually likes the name "Louise," I know now that I really am Louise, with all of it's character and, yes, even charm. Louise is quirky and different. Elizabeth (Consecrated to God)? Marie(Bitter Sea)? Lynne(Beautiful Waterfall)?

BO-ring!

And also, let me redirect your attention to the fact that Louise means Female Warrior. I don't care how you turn it, that's just straight up brass knuckles.

-XOXO,