For a long time, my name was Tricia.
That name holds many memories.
Some beautiful.
Some heavy.
When I look back at her, I see a girl who wanted to be loved so badly that she learned how to perform her way into belonging.
She believed that if she could achieve enough, shine enough, prove enough, she would finally be safe.
So she tried.
She tried to be the best in every room she entered.
If there was a way to excel, she chased it.
If there was a way to stand out, she found it.
Not because she enjoyed competition, but because she was afraid of being overlooked.
Being forgettable felt unbearable.
Later, that need took a different form.
She became someone who provided.
She gathered people, hosted and fed them.
She made spaces warm and inviting, believing that generosity would secure love.
If she could care for everyone else, surely she would matter.
Her life became carefully curated.
Experiences.
Appearance.
Words.
Timing.
Everything was intentional, but not in a peaceful way.
It was controlled because vulnerability felt dangerous.
Letting people see her cracks felt like inviting rejection, so Tricia chose perfection. And for a while, it worked, or at least it looked like it did.
Until it didn’t.
When the unraveling came, it was quiet and thorough.
The gatherings slowed and the opportunities stopped.
The financial stability she had worked so hard for disappeared, and the titles no longer applied. Even the education she earned no longer opened doors.
Everything she used to explain who she was began to fall away. This was the season I now understand as pruning. At the time, it felt like confusion, like being stuck, like failure.
I remember sitting alone, overwhelmed and exhausted, asking God why nothing was working anymore.
Why every door I reached for stayed closed.
Why the skills that once carried me forward suddenly felt useless. I didn’t get an answer right away.
What I got instead was stillness, and honestly, stillness was terrifying.
Stillness forced me to see myself.
Without the armor, the accomplishments, and the explanations.
For the first time, I had to sit with who I was inside, not who I presented to the world.
I didn’t like what I saw. I realized how much of my life had been shaped by fear, fear of being unloved, fear of not being chosen, fear of simply not being enough. Even my ambition had been driven by a quiet longing to finally feel complete.
In that season, stripped of everything familiar, I did the only thing left to do. I asked God to remake me, not to give me back what I had lost and not to restore the life I had built, but to create something new within me. Something truer. Something rooted.
Slowly, without drama, change began to happen. I became quieter, more grounded, less reactive. I stopped rushing moments that didn’t need to be rushed.
I learned how to sit without guilt, how to enjoy simple things without turning them into achievements, a cup of tea, a few minutes of stillness, a moment of peace. I was no longer trying to be impressive. I was learning how to be present.
Somewhere along the way, Tricia no longer fit. Not because she was bad or wrong, but because she belonged to a season that had ended. The person I was becoming needed a different posture, and a different name.
That is when I began to go by Tee.
Not as a reinvention or some random rebrand, but as a marker of becoming.
Who is Tee?
Tee is someone who does not need to perform to be loved. She is someone who trusts that God speaks, even in quiet seasons. She understands now that identity is not built through striving, but received through surrender.
This reflection is not shared because I have arrived. It is shared because I am still becoming, and because I know there are others who feel caught between who they were and who they are becoming, unsure of what to let go of and what to trust.
If that is you, I want you to know this.
You are allowed to become someone new.
Not because who you were was wrong, but because seasons change, and so do we.
A restart does not erase your past. It acknowledges what carried you here, and what no longer needs to come with you.
Changing my name was not about hiding from who I was. It was about giving myself permission to live into who I was becoming.
Letting go of “Tricia” was a way of releasing the version of myself that believed love had to be earned, and peace had to be achieved.
Becoming “Tee” marked a shift in posture, not a rejection of history.
A quieter way of living.
A slower way of listening.
A deeper trust that God can call you forward without rushing you.
If you are standing at the edge of something new, unsure of what to release or what to name next, you don’t have to have it all figured out.
You don’t need a full rebrand or a clear plan.
Sometimes becoming begins with a simple decision to live differently today than you did yesterday, to choose presence over performance, and to let God rename you in ways only He can.
You’re welcome here as you find your way into whatever comes next..