Identity Theft: She is Not Lynne (with an e)

Whenever I am asked for my first name, I usually reply, "Lynne with an e." I like that little extra letter tagged on the end, assuring that of all the billions of people on the planet, I am the only Lynne Hartke, with an e, that shows up on a google search.

So, imagine my surprise, when we tried to e-file our taxes last week and couldn't do so. Apparently, someone decided they liked my name so much, that they would take it for their own.

Along with my social security number.

I didn't need to add identity theft to my to-do list in the month of April. Of course, nobody ever wants to add it to their to-do list. Police report. Calls to the bank. A special form to the IRS. I have a long list of things to check off.

Identity theft is a bit unsettling--someone so much wanting to be me that they stole one of the first things I was ever given, one of the first basic elements of my person. My belonging.

My name. Lynne (with an e).

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, this person (he or she) might have identifying pieces, but she does not have the power to take away me. She might borrow my name, but she does not own me.

My memories. My thoughts. My beliefs.

She is not Lynne (with an e) who grew up with three siblings on an acreage outside of a small town in Minnesota where they had a large garden and when the tomatoes spoiled on the vine or were partially consumed by bugs the four kids would carefully weigh those squishy bombs in their palms before hurling them at each other in a grand veggie war each summer with red juice and seeds dripping down.

She is not Lynne (with an e) who as a newlywed lived in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota in a cabin without running water, where one evening she and her husband strapped on cross country skis to skim along moonlit paths under tree boughs bent over with white diamonds and the only sound was breath appearing in little puffs as icicles formed on their lashes in the frigid air.

She is not Lynne (with an e) who moved to Arizona in her mid-twenties, away from the lakes and pines to a world of saguaro and prickly pear, and when they first arrived, this Lynne stepped out of the car with a six-month-old son on her hip into the swirling howl of a major dust storm and the wind whipped her hair in all directions as the sand pinged her skin and the car door and the sweat dried in the oven heat before it could run all the way down her back.

She is not Lynne (with an e) who three decades later said goodbye to her father for the last time on that acreage in Minnesota so she could catch a plane to Arizona to be at her youngest son's graduation and she never wanted more to be a clone, and five months later, it was reversed as she got on a plane to be at the bedside of her mother while her daughter-in-law gave birth in Arizona to Lynne's first granddaughter, and who ever knew the tug and the pull could be so strong.

This belonging.

She is not Lynne with an e.

But I am.

If you were going to share a memory that is uniquely yours, what would you say? Where would you begin?