WHEN MY NAME FINALLY MEANT SOMETHING

©2025 Samantha Syrnich — All Rights Reserved

There was a time

when my name was shaped

by other people’s stories—

their hands,

their shadows,

their versions of who I was

or who I should have been.

But names are not prisons.

They are promises.

And one day,

I rose from every lie ever laid on me

and whispered my own truth

into the quiet.

It was small at first—

a spark,

a seed,

a fragile syllable of becoming.

But it grew.

It glowed.

It began to gather all the pieces of me

that were waiting to be claimed.

My name became a place

I could finally live inside

without shrinking,

without apologizing,

without folding myself

into shapes that hurt to hold.

Now, when I speak it,

it carries my scars,

my victories,

my softness,

my rise.

It carries the woman I fought to become.

And for the first time in my life,

my name means something—

because I am the one

who defined it.

— Samantha Syrnich