Paige Elizabeth

I was born the day before my mother's birthday. She was the one who named me; my father contributed nothing but his last name. She had always planned to name her daughter Paige, a name taken from a friend's alcoholic sister. Indeed, I was born at 5:30 pm on a Friday, on a sweltering desert day, just in time for happy hour, and became a devout drinker in my later years. My middle name came from her own, Mary Beth, because my mother was an unapologetic narcissist. I was the only Paige that I knew for most of my school years. Throughout my life nobody has been able to spell my name, opting for the phonetic "Page," and in fact, I was an avid reader, as well as half-assed writer, so the prophecy was fulfilled. I became an ESL teacher, in Poland, where my name continues to baffle students and give me away as a foreigner immediately. I'm usually happy to be the only one of my kind. As a constant traveller, however, any time I go to Starbucks, I always give a fake name, anything popular in the region where I happen to be. Better to disguise oneself under the cloak of the common, in case anyone comes looking for me.

-Paige Elizabeth, Rybnik, Poland