A school district in Iowa has just started up again for the year. Soon football games and pep rallies will fill the student’s time. They will all be searching for some meaning – the freshman figuring out where they belong in the scheme of high school, the seniors trying to figure out where they fit in this world. For one senior – this senior – this task will be more difficult than perhaps, for others. And she will come with her love of writing and her passion for life to see what else is out there – to see who she will become and who she can be.

Now that the third-person introduction is done, I feel the need to tell anybody who is listening who I am as a first-person. My name is Ann and I am that senior. I love writing more than perhaps anything else, save my family. So the idea of writing about my senior year and then onto college came naturally to me. But why a blog, why about figuring out who I am as a writer, a human being, a student, a mentor?

Because defining yourself comes not only from who you have been in the past, but who you want to be in the future. When you are born you are given a name from your parents. Sometimes you hate the name and sometimes you absolutely love it. But a name does not define you – it merely… helps you along. Have you ever had someone say to you, “Wow you don’t look like (insert name here)”? Exactly – your name is not always indicative of who you will be.

A name is not like a title; a title is something stronger with more sticking power than the average baby name book. A title can define you – but more often than not, you define the title. The title can be something silly like “Cheesy Risotto Lover who hates cats” or something serious as a personal ambition: “Become the next UN Ambassador to the U.S.”

So why did I give this blog the title “To Be Titled”? Because life doesn’t come with a title. It’s as simple as that. When you are born you are not given a title unless you are British and a noble. You have to create your own title based on who you want to become but also who you are.

“To Be Titled” also fits for me because I am a writer. I write whatever my heart feels and whatever my muse guides me to. My writing is often not titled until after it is done with a first draft because a title defines – and I don’t want a piece defined until it knows where it will and has gone. “To Be Titled” works because it speaks of my writing and it also speaks of my life as a senior in high school, looking forward to what comes next, wondering where and how she’ll get through it all.