Personal Narrative: I Want To Be A Farley Girl

All I wanted was to fit in with these people I call my family. As a child, I lost myself and felt like I was somehow misplaced in a life that wasn't mine. At sporting events no one would recognize that I was one of the “Farley girls.” Sure, Shayla and Alex were not my biological sisters, and no, Ryan isn't my biological father, but they felt biological to me. The titles, “step daughter and step sister” felt so distant and cold to me. I never wanted to hear the word “step”, in reference to me, ever again. I wanted to be a Farley.

In 2010 my biological father died. This started a spiral of the eleven year old me trying to find myself. Soon after the passing, I told my mother that I wanted to change my last name.

“Hey mom, can I talk to you about something?” I hesitated.

“Of course

If you wait a year and still want to do this, we will go forward and get permission from everyone.” my mom replies, thinking that I am just going through a phase.

Throughout that seemingly long year, my mother began to watch me. She noticed that I struggled during cheering events when they would call Shayla and Alex’s names, recognizing them as sisters, and not calling mine with them. Dealing with not knowing who I was and grieving the loss of my father, seemed to me like this grief and anger was never ending.

One year goes by, I tell my mother I still wanted to change my name. Realizing this was not just a phase in my life, that the Jewel she had once known was not there, she said she would consider it. I became thrilled, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I talked to my paternal family and my biological brother to make sure everyone was okay with me moving forward on the name change. Everyone was thrilled, they told me, “You will always be a Cogswell to us.” With the go ahead from my family, we sent in the papers to change my name. Two weeks later we got the date back to legally change my