Pookie Goes Home

I just got back from a weekend trip to Illinois to visit my family. Although it's an easy four-hour drive, perfect for a weekend (preferably a long weekend,) I have to admit that I don't get back there nearly as often as I'd like. Despite the distance between us geographically and the completely different lives we all now live, I'm still really close to my immediate family.

During my visits home, of course I look forward to catching up with my family, but I also look forward to the break from my "real life," the 30 year-old professional woman who works 9 to 5, pays bills and has a healthy retirement plan. Sometime during the drive back to the "homeland," I transform from the independent career woman that I've become to the youngest child, little sister, spoiled with love and attention teenager. Somewhere in the middle of Indiana, between Clarksville and "Skeeter Mountain," I, once again, become "Pookie."

Since I was probably ten years-old, my family has called me nothing but "Pookie," or worse, "Pook," and even on special occasions, "Pook Stain" (nice, right?)  I am "Pookie" to my parents, my sisters, close friends of my sisters, and even to my nephews, at home and in public without fail. In fact, it is so ingrained in me now, that I don't even realize that I'm answering to this silly nickname from across the grocery store or in the middle of a nice restaurant. It no longer even occurs to me to be embarrassed about my funny "name" like I once was.

I hardly remember how it all began, calling me by a nickname, but "Pookie" does not exactly fit me, at least I don't think. When I think of someone who might better fit the name, I think of a preppy, pastel sweater-wearing (draped over her shoulders, of course) big-haired blonde, southern socialite who has a trust fund and even as a grown woman calls her dad "daddy." This is most definitely not me. My dad would laugh if I did, or he'd squirt me with the tiny water gun he always has closeby to keep cats off the table or to show his "disapproval" of a particularly obnoxious belch or bad word one of the rest of us might share.

As much as I can tell, my sister started calling me this long-enduring nickname for the very reason that it isn't me. As I do a bit of soul-searching, I will have to get the real story from my sister, but I think the name stuck because of my very dry sense of humor (a quality given directly to me from my dad.) "Pookie" is not a name you would give to a nearly six-foot tall woman who may wear a pastel-colored sundress with the appearance of warmth and friendliness on the outside, but who is wearing head-to-toe "goth" black and silently judging you on the inside. Only my family knows the real me, the girl who has always been more introspective than outgoing, more mature than naive, more "Mrs. Robinson" than "Elaine," at least on the inside.

I've long given up on the hope that my unfortunate nickname would go away. I now realize that I will probably someday be the oldest, wrinkliest, most sarcastic "Pookie" in "the home." But I've also come to love my name. To me, it is a wonderful and nostalgic reminder of where I come from, the people (my family) who've known me on my best day and my worst and that I'm still the same girl I've always been, even though I now have (gasp!) responsibility. So, now I'm going to go pay bills and with new inspiration. I may even sign the checks "Pookie."