My name is Mina, but you can call me Mina :)

My father named me Mina, I was raised with the name Mina. I grew up with the name, everything I ever knew was because of my name. Mina, you see, grew up with everything I knew as a person growing up. But, I always got made fun of cause of my name. Mean-uh, Minh-ah(minh means smelly in Laos), My-nuh, and any other awful names my name could be formed into. Then there was 7th grade, where I earned the nickname Mimi because I often fell asleep in class and Mimi means sleep in Spanish and I had a lot of Mexican classmates(Moreno Valley, CA.) At that time I was a new kid, no one really knew my name and I guess Mina was hard to pronounce, so I got used to being called Mimi. Then I moved to Fresno, I just started introducing myself as Mimi. I started hating my real name, I hated the sound of Mina. I don’t remember why, but I did. Next thing you know, Mimi was just a phase in my life. I was only 13 when I earned the nickname and that’s when I started changing. When I was 16 1/2 years old, I realized that the whole 4 years that I passed by the name Mimi shaped me into a better person….. and I became Mina again. See through those 4 years I’ve been through so much agony and life lessons. I’m not saying because of the name Mimi I am who I am today, but what I’ve learned through the process of those 4 years. They were really good life lessons, and I don’t regret anything that happened. Through those 5 years, I’ve learned a lot. Then I realized, why Mimi? My name is Mina. My real name is Mina, who is Mimi? I mean, Lisa’s dogs name is Mimi, there’s Mymy Dinh, and Allen has a dog named Mimi who had puppies who he named after me, Mimi!(nothings wrong with the name Mimi though, it’s cute actually) So I just decided to just start introducing myself as Mina, but I will never leave behind Mimi, I’ll never forget her. Mimi is a part of me, and she holds memories of the greatest and worst times of my short almost 18 years of life. And people who still call me Mimi is very warming to me because it means they’re close to me, closer than anybody else who calls me Mina(sometimes). So what I’m saying is, Mimi was just a phase in my life that I very much appreciate, but from now on, you can call me Mina :)