how i found my name

I don't remember how i named myself so i made up my own story and this one is probably much more interesting.

There's a place, it place for people who are looking for something. The name rings bell in everyone's mind but no one can quite remember what it is. The name stays murky in the depths of people's minds, unnoticed and unimportant but to few the name might be remembered. I was one of these few, I don't know if I count as lucky for it. I don't remember how I found the place, I must have been wandering down a side street as I often did back then, they always seemed to be so welcoming with the quietness of falling down brickwork and faded shop fronts of Chinese cafes. I saw the name in one of these shop fronts, the sign was faded but it's colours still stood out more than the rest of, maybe that was just my mind though. It was a record store with mountains of beat-up boxes of CDs upon teetering tables and the walls covered in faded posters of the Beatles and the cure and all the bands that I'd grown up on. A man, probably middle aged or older, appeared from the back, he was the kind of person you'd see at a local iron maiden tribute show with his salt and pepper stubble and shoulder length wiry hair. He didn't really speak but he pointed to a door labelled lost and found, it made sense I suppose to find a lost and found in the place for people who are looking for something. I needed a new name, I had one but it never really fit right, like doc martens that never broke in, and I think this might have been the place to find a fitting name. Behind the door there was an alley, with dirty bricks and a dumpster and weeds growing from between the brickwork and cracks in the concrete. I felt at home in the dirtiness, there was a comfort of something familiar but then the plants started talking. I'd always talked to the plants that I found, dandelions were my favorite as they always seemed to give me their full attention and now they were speaking back and I gave them all mine. they told me their story of how they'd grown from seed beneath the ground reaching up to the sun, how they saw each other bloom and wither with each season change, they told me of all the people that had passed through here, how sometimes the bricks or the bugs talked to the person, the struggles they faced with what they had lost, whether it be something physical like a photo of loved ones or something non tangible like inspiration to keep creating and keep living. They told me their story so I told them mine, I told them of how I grew up on green day and rage against the machine, I told them about my tiny primary school and the mountain I lived on, I told them of the friends that I'd made and lost, those who had changed and those I've grown away from, I told them of family and how I don't know what it means to me, I told them the music that shaped me and how I grew from a shy girl in circle skirts to a punk rock boy in crust pants without a name. I don't know how long I sat there talking but they always listened, through my sorrows and my happiness they listened. There was silence as my story ended, then they spoke, they had a name for me, one with three syllables like my favorite number, with many nicknames to fit my every changing feminine masculinity, one that they could grow with me as I aged. they didn't name me after family or friends, they named me after my own story, they named me Benjamin.

I'm an illustrator so i will probably end up making this into a story story zine.