For years, I used @grimmestthings as my username on Instagram. I still think of it as mine writing it now, but the truth is, it no longer is. I changed it a few minutes ago to @playfulyoga_, which is indeed the name of my yoga class. I started teaching a couple of others meanwhile in a different place, but this one is the longest, the first, and the one that most represents me. Someone actually asked me today in class why I started doing it this way - I said because I didn't know anyone else who was going to give me what I needed. So I started doing it for myself, combining yoga wih dancing and focusing on intuitive movement and psychology.
One of my fantasies is still to move towards a more psychological yoga practice, turning to different figures and archetypes in the Jungian school, but I'm still a long way from mastering either subject enough to teach that.
So I changed my name. It was @grimmestthings a long, long time. I christened it for the first book I wrote, a collection of short freewrites I'd had here on Hive. The words "grimmest things" came to mind one day, and I wrote them down on the Notes app in my phone. When it came to giving the book a title, I chose that.
The truth is, there have been so many grim things. I love the book. And I still write about a lot of grim, twisted shit.
When AI suggested changing my username to something more reflecting yoga (the main thing I am trying to promote through social media right now), I didn't want to. I didn't want to change the name just to further a marketing goal.
But then, I started thinking about it, and slowly realized, much as I love it, it no longer represents the whole of me. I picked the name Grimmest Things at a stage in my life when I still had that childish sense of wonder regarding all things terrible and dark. It's not uncommon in teenagers, this fascination with brutality and darkness.
I am fascinated by the darkness, still, and it features often in my writing.
But so does light now. I started analyzing the name - why only? And do I really need to do much to attract grim things into my life? They seem to come unbidden, as they do for all of us. If someone had told 18-year-old me of all the suffering I would have and witness in those I love, without making mention of the protagonists, she might've been fascinated. I liked (and like still) the stories of great tragedy that come with hope but cost, as well, in equal measure.
I no longer want to attract only the grimmest things to my life. I don't think a username does that. It's just, there's a disconnect between the light I try to put there, the good things and happiness that my practice has brought, and my name.
I started asking myself... why? What place does grimness have in my life?
I think it has a place in my writing, but not on my mat. I think I want to learn never to run and hide from the chaos, but also am so much more that calling myself solely by the bad things no longer suited my frame.
I'll still be writing dark things. And delving often into terrible things, but with more caution and a tighter net around my waist to pull me back. From now on, though, I want to use my name for light, for good. I am not the chaos that comes my way, and if you read one of my stories, you might encounter some things that are pretty grim. But if you speak to me as a person, if you look me up, I hope you see more. That I can bring somehow into your life more.
(that's a lotta thoughts for one username change, I know. but thanks for reading.)
