How I Came Up with “Onion Girl”

If you look waaaaay back to 2005, when I began this journal, you will see that I was struggling with depression.  I was only just beginning to realize that I really had a problem with it.  One of the things with which I struggled was the fact that I felt that I was doing everything backward.  I married just out of high school, then experienced Dave’s suicide and my ectopic pregnancy.  Had recently ended a three-year relationship with a man I really loved and was now caught up in a relationship with yet another man I thought I loved, but who I now realize was just using me like a drug.

I felt old and used up, like a well-worn pair of shoes.  Maybe they’re not really that old, but they have had the hell beat out of them.

My very good friend, Talib, and I talked a lot.  He talked about the fact that I was right around the age that Jesus was when he was crucified, and that maybe this is a cycle of life thing.  Then he made reference to onions having layers and people are like onions (yes, I know it’s a Shrek thing).  So I toyed with the idea of Onion Girl.  I rolled it over in my mind a bit, and realized that it sounded a bit like “un-young girl.”  And that hit the buzzer.

At 35, I wasn’t old, but I was well-worn.  Un-young.  Previously owned.

It may be time to change the name of this account.  Un-Young no longer describes me, if it ever did.  But maybe, now, I’m a young sage, which, interestingly, is defined in Google as “a profoundly wise man, especially one who features in ancient history or legend.”  Man.  Not person.  I’m not even surprised.  And this is what makes me un-young!