The "TENTFIRE" Name

I was on-line one day signing up for my first "dating site." I had just lost my Round Dance partner and was looking for a new dance partner. Some friends had urged me to try looking via a dating site. Hesitantly I began to fill out the sign-up info. In no time it came to the part where I had to pick a screen name.


I thought of several screen names, but each time I checked it's 'availability' it was already taken. It would say that I could use that screen name with the next number after the name. Well. . . .I am pretty unique (which isn't always good, lol) and I wanted a unique name, one that truly represented me. I didn't want one that everyone else picked. 


So I sat there thinking. . . . What is one of my favorite things to do. . . .something that I really enjoy and makes me happy. . . . CAMPING (I had just divorced and my kids and I went camping often to "destress"). . . . . Let's see. . . .we usually like tent camping best so I will use "TENT". . . .to represent not only camping, but the style of camping I like best with my kids. 


Then I thought. . . . What do we especially like to do when we go camping? . . . When we start to set up camp, one of the first things we usually do is start gathering up wood to have ready for a big bonfire at night. My kids and I have always enjoyed relaxing, cooking over, talking and bonding by a big bonfire. And I have wonderful memories of my musical son playing his harmonica, saxaphone and guitar as we all relaxed by our bonfire. Even now the mental picture of those times gone by is still very calming. And when I was divorcing another one of my friends also was divorcing at the same time. We had become friends at the lake over 30 years ago (we won't count past that 30, lol). Our husbands had cut us off from all of our friends and we had lost contact for many, many years. A mutual friend from our old camping days got us back in touch with each other during our divorce period. We (and our families) had been close. We learned that at times we had even been pregnant simultaneously, each having one of our boys only two weeks apart! We, our kids, and several of our long-lost friends then got together often on weekends that first summer of singlehood, camped together at the campground we had all met at originally, reminisced on old times, and caught up on lost years around a HUGE campfire as our kids got to know each other. So I shortened "Bonfire" to use just "FIRE." 


And so my screen name "TENTFIRE" was born. It is a screen name that signifies the beginning of a "new life,"  holds warm thoughts of lost friends found, and fun, happy times with my kids.  Quite a few years have passed now since my screen name was born, yet still, no matter what the day may bring,  the thoughts it holds makes me smile and feel good. It signifies my "happy place."