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I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

My family nickname for a long time was little man.

Then simply, little.

Who knows why?

I recall my mother once saying that even as a kid,

I had the demeanor of an old person.

Serious, morose, not quick to smile, always with my face pressed into a book.

But, as fitting as it might have been as a kid, as a young adult, I begin to tire of the psychology of diminution. At holiday gatherings, it was, little man, say the blessing. Or, are you dating anyone,

little? Or, little man, remember that time we secretly tied your sneakers,

and you fell and tripped, running to the school bus? The family moniker fixed me to a long ago age.

I felt reduced. No one saw that I had grown well beyond their memories of me. I commuted to a job every morning,

where coworkers depended on my punctual performance. I wasn't the cute little kid anymore,

who merely behaved like an adult. I was an adult. One night at a bar, I told my younger cousins,

I no longer wish to be called little man.

My name is Major.

They heard me, but only for an hour,

then fell back to calling me little,

...