I didn’t want my maiden name back.
Morris.
Which is probably a strange thing to say considering that’s the name I’m publishing under now.
But I really struggled with going back to it.
Morris reminded me of a version of myself that, quite frankly, I would rather leave where she was. There are years attached to that name that make me shake my head. Mistakes. Foolery. Decisions I wouldn’t make today.
And for a long time, I think moving forward meant putting as much distance as possible between me and that version of myself.
Then there was my married name.
That name was complicated in a completely different way.
It represented a chapter of my life that had ended, but when I looked back on those years, there were parts of myself I actually liked. I had grown up in a lot of ways. I was more settled. More responsible. In some ways, more wholesome.
So going back to Morris didn’t feel like moving forward.
It felt like going backward.
And I didn’t want to go backward.
I wanted a new beginning to look…new.
But I prayed about it, and I believed God was leading me back to my maiden name.
So here I am.
Morris again.
And somewhere in all of this, I’ve had to confront what I made that name mean.
There’s a question God asks Adam in Genesis that I’ve been thinking about:
“Who told thee that thou wast naked?”
Adam and Eve had already been naked. Before the fall, Scripture says they were both naked and they weren’t ashamed.
Their nakedness wasn’t new.
What changed was how they saw themselves.
And that question made me ask one of my own:
Who told me Morris could only mean who I used to be?
Who decided that this name had to stay attached to my mistakes?
Well…
I did.
I had taken a name and attached an entire identity to it.
Morris meant that Tasha.
And maybe part of what I’m learning is that I don’t have to hate who I was in order to become who God is calling me to be.
I can acknowledge my mistakes. I can shake my head at some things. I can wish I had made different decisions.
But I don’t have to spend the rest of my life running from that woman either.
She was me.
And God was merciful to her too.
So I’m Morris again.
I’m rereleasing my book as LaTasha S. Morris. I’m putting my work under that name. I’m building under a name I once thought belonged to a version of myself I wanted to forget.
I don’t know that I’ve completely untangled everything I attached to that name. Maybe I don’t have to do that all at once.
I just know it doesn’t feel quite as much like going backward anymore.
I’m not going back to being who I was.
I’m just taking my name with me.
And maybe, over time, Morris will hold more than the story of who I used to be. Maybe it gets to hold what God is doing in me now, too.