I'm failing at individualism.

My dad can't spell my name and I don't know what to wear - or who I am.

I was born in the fall of 1991 in Athens, Greece. My parents appointed my older sister, Matina, with naming me. She had begged them and prayed to God every night for a little sister, so when I came along I belonged more to her than I ever did to my parents. It was only fair for her to pick my name and she really did the best a 12 year old could do when tasked with making such a permanent decision. After some deliberation and a bit of influence from a Young and the Restless soap opera character, Kristen was what she came up with. And in the very homogeneous Greece of the 90’s, Kristen was exotic -or maybe I would have liked it to be. Regardless, it was, and remains, decidedly foreign. Kristen invited a lot of follow up questions with the Greeks.

- Do you mean Christina?

- What name were you baptised with?

- You’re not baptised?

- Are you not a Christian?

- Where are you from?

- But where were you born?

- Where are your parents from ORIGINALLY?

The last answer is “it’s complicated”, but the complications didn’t end there. When my father enlisted himself with registering me as a US citizen at the American embassy in Athens, a nationality I was inheriting from him, he didn’t know how to spell my name, he didn’t even know he didn’t know. So as he reached out his right hand over an official American document, blue little Bic pen in between his callused fingers, he confidently put down “Cristen” not with a K but with a C and without an H right after. He signed the papers and went on his merry way to also misspell my brother’s name five years later.

Nobody’s name is Cristen, Cristen is a typo, an accident. Cristen is a cornfed, lobster colored milk-toast inbred born to parents that never learned to read or write, maybe even worse, parents that thought spelling a basic name in a unique way is “edgy”. Cristen is a shameful shadow. A warped reflection in a carnival fun house mirror.

The first time I had to go by “Cristen” I was 21. Greece was deep into its recession and I was desperate to make something more than the recession-core, minimum wage of €400 a month. I heard from a friend of a friend about this airline, Emirates, recruiting cabin crew in the city. The beginner salary was triple the Greek minimum wage at the time and their flight attendants got to travel the world and live, all expenses paid, in Dubai. A dream career for some. A way out of the crisis and a random side quest for me.

For the interview, I borrowed my sister’s inconspicuous grey office attire, I put my DIY ombre hair in an unflattering low bun and applied red lipstick, maybe for the first time. The austere and corporate look sat on me like a costume, like a cat stuffed in a sweater. At 21 I had no idea who I was, but I knew I wasn’t that, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to survive the Great Recession.

I couldn’t have been more clueless during those interviews but somehow, I people-pleased my way into landing the job. “You don’t have any work experience in the service industry, you wouldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t bilingual and an American citizen, you’re lucky.” The final interviewer told me bluntly. That misspelled American passport was what ultimately landed me the job.

Half a year later I was in an ill-fitting, beige uniform serving vodka sodas in economy class 30000 feet in the sky, Cristen engraved on my name tag. I didn’t last long doing a job I never had the passion for, but Cristen, the flight attendant, existed for nine months in Dubai and in the 22 other countries she flew to.

A decade later, I’m Cristen again but this time it’s more permanent. After a lifetime of having an American citizenship that I never took advantage of, I randomly felt compelled last year to move here, to a country that my family had immigrated into (and then out of). And I did it because I believed, here of all places, I would find my spouse. A wildly delusional choice and so far, my ring finger is still empty and my last name (which is also misspelled) is still my father’s.

What I have found so far is a loving and very honest partner, one that early on in our relationship shared with me that I don’t look like a “Kristen”. I deserve a name more unique than that, because here, it’s not the exotic, foreign title that invites intrusive questions. In America, this name my sister gave me, is boring and basic. *Gasp* I’m not special anymore!

And sometimes, in moments where my narcissism is inflamed I imagine myself with a more deserving, more glorious name. And I wouldn’t just correct the C, I’d have the whole thing gone and replaced with another, I’d embrace the personality that came with my new name and embody this new, edgier, more stable persona wholeheartedly - if only it didn’t feel so cringe for me to do that.

The cringe-free, name-change pass is reserved for singers, artists, trans people, Asians moving to western countries, westerners after yoga teacher training in India, online personas through juvenile usernames and of course, drag queens. I had many chances to cash in on that pass and now it feels like the ship has sailed. Perhaps marriage is my final loophole and like Phoebe Buffay, I too will get to change my name to Princess Consuela Bananahammock or something equally embarrassing yet sincere, a girl can dream.

But the truth is I can’t pick a new name, because after a while, I’ll begin to regret it, I’ll be over the phase that made me choose it in the first place and then I’ll be stuck with another name I don’t like. I regret all my tattoos and I think that’s a good indicator that I can’t trust the present version of me to not let myself down in the future. I’ve changed my mind on virtually everything I ever wanted, worked for, believed in and stood for and as frustrating as that might be, I mostly blame it on being an air sign. Libras can never make their minds up. It’s true and sometimes, it’s hell.

I became aware of my mutable nature pretty young, a teacher in high school called me a “chameleon”, not as a compliment but as a warning, something that I would have to work on by replacing it eventually with a more permanent, solid identity. Since then I’ve been asking myself, Who am I? How can I be more me? Why can’t I stop changing? Why can’t I stick to a style, an interest, a direction in life? Why does this come so easily to some people but not to me? Most importantly, what is wrong with me?

Then I saw this photo of Brad Pitt circulating online. The title: “Brad: The man who likes to look like his girlfriend” followed by a collage of images of a young Brad Pitt with all the women he dated, and with every new woman his style changed to match hers. Brad is not an air sign but I fear we both suffer from the same condition. I’m not alone. More of us are out there.

In the world of sustainable fashion, me and many others have emphasised how important it is to find your personal style, to avoid following trends, (or changing it to match your partner). A strong, distinct personal style is an indicator of higher self awareness. But I’m self aware, I swear! Even though I still can’t seem to know what to wear.

We didn’t have to grapple with these existential crises a century ago. My great-grandmothers dressed just like all the other women in their village, they got married and gave birth in caves like all the other women in their village, they did the same work as their mothers like all the other women in their village. Yet look at me now, only a couple generations later, far away from the land of my ancestors, showing enough midriff to have been labeled as the village harlot and typing out words with enough coherence that not even the local priest of their time would be able to match. I can wear what I want, I can say what I want, I can live where I want, so much freedom yet so often, I still can’t figure out what I actually want. Individualism is a brand-spanking new concept that I don’t know if our - or at least my - ape brain is fully equipped to navigate.

The attire of my great-grandmothers, the capote and capelo worn in the Azores, Portugal.

Many of us are looking for our village, maybe it’s in the “ballerinacore” aesthetic, maybe it’s under MAGA hats, maybe it’s corporate and austere. Maybe we find it, for a year, for five, but then we go on one trip, abroad (or the psychedelic kind) and we return a different person. So we reinvent ourselves all over again. With her tail between her legs, the chameleon changes, her wardrobe, her opinions, her identity and the villagers throw tomatoes at her as she changes into her new repulsive color and abandons them for another tribe, one that has the same color as her.

But those who “stick to who they are” are praised for their authenticity, admired for their strong sense of identity. They are the enlightened, the individualists that have successfully adapted to this new solitary world. They are above all the sheep that follow trends and all the losers that easily change their minds. I wish I could be like them, but I’m a loser baby.

Or perhaps we have it all wrong. Maybe being a chameleon isn’t the lack of identity, maybe it is the identity itself. Change in the world is accelerating. Women’s bodies change every month, our mood changes with the phases of the moon, we are creatures subjected to constant flux and we punish ourselves for it. I, for one, refuse to leave this state of fluidity, it feels good here. Scratch that- it feels awful but clinging to who I was is worse. I’ll stay lost in this limbo until inevitably, I change my mind again, until my colors change, scale by scale and I become acquainted with the next, temporary, me.