Learning My Own Name is the most personal song on the record.
It goes back to childhood. Growing up as a trans kid, long before I had the language to understand what I was feeling. For a long time it felt like living slightly out of step with the world — watching other people move through life with a certainty that never quite seemed available to me.
There was a lot of loneliness in those years. A lot of trying to fit into expectations that never really fit back. It took time, and more courage than I knew I had, to stop running from that quiet voice underneath everything.
That’s what this song is about. The slow and sometimes difficult process of recognizing who you are, and choosing to live honestly with that truth.
In the song, there’s a line about being “lit up inside the flame.” For me, that captures the moment when something finally shifts — when the confusion and fear start giving way to clarity. When you realize the thing you were trying to hide might actually be the thing that guides you forward.
Even though the story comes from my experience as a trans person, the feeling behind it is something a lot of people understand. Most of us spend part of our lives feeling awkward, unsure, or like we’re standing just outside of where we’re supposed to be.
And sometimes the hardest thing isn’t changing the world around you. It’s finding the courage to finally call yourself by your own name.
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TR#3: “Learning My Own Name”
Verse 1
I was a quiet kid in a crowded room
Trying to breathe where the truth had no room
Every mirror felt like borrowed skin
Every prayer said “don’t let them in”
They said love would never walk away
But love had rules I had to obey
The moment my truth began to show
The doors that were open started closing slow
Pre-Chorus
Fourteen years of walking alone
Fourteen years of a heart unknown
Chorus
Fourteen years of knocking on closed doors
Fourteen years of silent wars
Everyone said I should stay the same
But they never knew my name
Somewhere deep in the fear and the blame
A spark lit up inside the flame
Every step through the pain
I was learning my own name
Verse 2
Friends would laugh but they couldn’t see
The storm that followed everywhere with me
They didn’t walk when the road turned steep
Didn’t stay when the nights ran deep
Some scars fade and some remain
Some still whisper inside my brain
Old wounds I still scratch in the night
Just to remind me I survived the fight
Pre-Chorus
Fourteen years of being erased
Fourteen years without a place
Chorus
Fourteen years of knocking on closed doors
Fourteen years of silent wars
Everyone said I should stay the same
But they never knew my name
Somewhere deep in the fear and the blame
A spark lit up inside the flame
Every step through the pain
I was learning my own name
Bridge
They tried to write my story
Before I learned to read
Tried to tell me who to be
And what I was allowed to need
But somewhere in the silence
Under years of fear and shame
A voice kept whispering softly
“Someday you’ll say your name.”
And when that moment came
The world would never be the same
Final Chorus
Fourteen years but I broke the chain
Fourteen years just to claim my name
The world can whisper, shout, or shame
But none of that will make me change
Through the fear, through the flame
Through the scars that still remain
Every step I take the same
I’m still learning my own name
Still learning my name
Still learning my name
Sabrina Constance 