Who am I, really ?

This week I had a profound experience, regarding my identity ... just about a week after I wrote a story about my seemingly lost identity.

In the process of filing various documents for my dual citizenship process, gratefully with the divine assistance of our agents here in Italy (the Daniels, we call them, Daniel Sr and Daniel Jr) and, that of our ancestors as well ;), I got startling news.

My full name on my birth certificate and my US passport do not match, and this causes a hiccup for the Italian government who will grant my citizenship. For my entire life I have known myself as Diane Therese. My actual birth name is Diane Theresa. Mm-hmm. I just learned this for the first time in my life.

(For the record, I go by Diana Scalia just because it’s more Italian, and I personally prefer Diana to Diane; Diana is not my birth/legal name. I’ve never used Diana in any of these legal documents. Nor did I know about Theresa, my case in point.)

Do you know how when you’re a child and your mother is mad and calls you and perhaps all of your siblings by their first, middle, and last name??? I never heard “DianeTheresa Scalia!!!” It was always “DianeTherese Scalia!!!!”

It has always been my understanding as well, that I was named for St. Therese (of Lisieux, Normandie, France, by the way ... something I only learned a couple of years ago), who is the patron saint of the church and school I attended as a child. My cousin, Kathleen Therese, is my godmother and I believed that my baptism/middle name was Therese to honor her as well.

Allora. All moot points by now.

So what does this mean? Thank you for asking.

The first consequence was that we would need to go to Florence (3 hours from Cagli) to sort this out with the US Consulate; this would be a day trip starting around dawn ... I sorted my prayers accordingly, as in, thank you for fixing this for the best, highest, and most joyful good of everyone involved.

It wouldn’t have been terrible to spend time in Florence and, six hours of travel in one day is not for me, especially by car. I also felt awful that this could possibly gravely inconvenience our agents to escort us there, and yet they are extremely kind and were absolutely willing to do so.

It was my late brother John’s earthly birthday that day, I called on him. I called on my late parents, who were maybe just exhausted the day I was born otherwise why the ‘a’ at the end of my middle name that no one has ever used my entire life? I called on (and apologized to) St Therese of Lisieux, who laughed, and promised that she is there for me unconditionally.

Within a few hours, we got the good news from our agent that this could all be fixed without us going to Florence in person. A group of us went out to dinner that night, celebrated, and toasted exquisite glasses of fine red wine, to Gratitude, Ease, Effortlessness.

Now I guess what’s next for me, is to contemplate my new identity. My Italian passport will read Diane Theresa Scalia.

I positively love it.

I’m going to think about being that girl and I can already imagine that this is going to be really fun.

I can’t wait to see what’s next.

I’ve never had a brand-new identity before!