Ashley Lee shares about her names and choosing an identity.
I have two names. One is Chaelin, the name my parents use and the one my Korean relatives call me. When I hear it, I feel myself straighten, as if that name carries a reminder of who I’m supposed to be. The other name is Ashley, the name I use at school.
It moves easily through classrooms, attendance sheets, and conversations. For a long time, I didn’t think much of the difference. But one afternoon at lunch, with a half-eaten cheeseburger pushed aside and backpacks at our feet, a friend asked if I could hang out after school. Right then, my phone buzzed with a reminder about an assignment I still hadn’t finished. I couldn’t answer right away. Two different answers came to mind.
One part of me wanted to say yes immediately, to hang out with my friends and not think about anything else for a while. The other was already calculating how much time I would lose. That was the moment I realized what I had been doing for years. As Chaelin, my mind was always on grades: homework, extra credit, what I still needed to get done.
As Ashley, I was somewhere else entirely, chatting with friends or thinking about tennis practice after school. I didn’t just switch names; I changed how I talked, how I acted, and what I valued. For a long time, I thought I would eventually have to choose which version of myself mattered more. Now, I see it differently.