sid's inner sanctum

For my 29th birthday, my boss gifted me with the domain sidneyyerger.com, saying that everyone deserves to own their name on the internet. And when she said that it actually made a lot of sense.

As I get older and start to seriously consider marriage, I’ve been thinking a lot more deeply about the weight of my name and how it has been central to my identity for the past 29 years. I didn’t choose my name and yet it’s often one of the first things people know about me. Even the spelling of my name has shaped how I engage with the world, forcing me to decide when to be more assertive or passive in ensuring that people honor my parents’ spelling of “Sidney Yerger,” instead of letting them default to the familiar spelling of “Sydney,” “Yeager,” or sometimes even “Sydney Yeager.”

I’m sure for most people, when they first hear the name “Sidney Yerger” they are picturing everything but a Black woman, unless they are given some kind of cue to make that connection. I’m sure when a loved one, work associate, or acquaintance hears someone mention “Sidney Yerger” they have a very specific set of feelings and memories that come up for them. I’ve earned degrees and awards and have lived many different lives as Sidney Yerger. So it only makes sense that I should claim a small bit of space on the internet, shaped in a way that reflects who I feel that I am.

All of that to say that I have a blog now. As I navigate the last year of my 20’s and the start of my Saturn return, I’m very excited to have a space to document my experiences and verbalize some of the things that I’ve been reflecting on. While I can’t promise that I will post consistently or that my thoughts will be particularly original or insightful, I do know that I intend on making this my space where I’ll be sharing my thoughts first and thinking about my “audience” last — if at all. I look forward to having another small creative outlet for myself, that can push me to slow down and consider how I move through the world. A small, but heartfelt thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to be a part of my inner sanctum.