Sound and Vision

Believe it or not, I chose my name. It wasn’t the one I was born with and no…I’m not going to tell you and you wouldn’t be impressed (its ridiculously average…so don’t ask) I got married at the very young age of 20 in my first year of university. I strongly believed that the person I dated God told me would be ‘the one’ and we would be ‘together forever’ Alas, I was young and so ridiculously naive what I was walking into.

I faced eight years of good but slowly turning darker days. My ex was constantly worried about me leaving her, had highly dysfunctional parents and was verbally abusive to me. Further to that when she finally was unfaithful to me, when I willingly underwent couples counselling she refused to take part in the process. So divorce soon followed, with a side order of homelessness.

…I decided I needed a change in path, a change in life and therefore a name change. The person I was before I was disgusted with. They were weak, milquetoast and lacked a spine.

After sofa surfing at many houses, I decided I needed a change in path, change in life and therefore a name change. The person I was before I was disgusted with. They were weak, milquetoast and lacked a spine. I needed something more, something that represented and sounded greater than who I was.

After a year I settled on a new first name: Aquila (Eagle in Latin) I settled on it because I’ve always admired these large birds of prey. How they fly to breathtaking heights, how they live in the hardest places to reach and most of all…vision to see things as a whole and from a height.

Once I put things in place, I put in the work of trying to shape a life worthy of the name I gave myself. I like how it sounded (its Ah-quill-ah btw) and it made me think about vision for my life. Not so much in the cliche ‘blue sky’ thinking but every day.

Through mental health issues, through suicide attempts, through relationship problems, I committed to thinking about it every single day. So what does your life look like? Even more…what does it sound like?

Until next time, #embraceinfinity