Who Is Madge Powers? An Origin Story
If you've been around my corner of the internet for any length of time, you've met a woman named Madge Powers. Maybe you've wondered who she is. Maybe you think she's me. Maybe you ARE one of the people who knows me in real life and never learned my actual name — hi, surprise, we need to talk.
It's time I explained.
I first heard the name Madge Powers when I was little, in my Grammy's stories. Madge was real — she was Grammy's best friend growing up in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Every time Grammy said the name, it landed on me like a superhero's: *Madge Powers.* Say it out loud. It sounds like a woman who kicks a door open and the room gets more interesting. As a kid I decided it was the coolest name there was, filed it away in my heart, and carried it around for decades without knowing why.
Then life handed me the why.
I graduated from college at 39 — yes, 39, we'll unpack that adventure another day — and it was time to promote myself online and go get the career. But here's the thing about being from a huge family and spending 25 years in hospitality in the same city: everybody knows you. I wanted to be hired for ME — not for who I knew, not for who I was related to — and the alternative was scrubbing years of internet life like a crime scene. That sounded exhausting, and honestly? I didn't want to erase who I'd been to to make room for who I was becoming.
So I did the thing that made sense to exactly one person (me): I changed my name on every social account.
Grammy's bestie rode again.
And something funny happened. The anonymity I wanted turned into something better — an alter ego. There are people in my life today who have known me for years as Madge and nothing else. And I've realized Madge isn't a disguise at all. She's a distillation. Madge is a fun, colorful gal with zero hesitation in her. She's all the best parts of me with the volume knob snapped off.
Jessi designs the brands.
Madge kicks the door open.
So now you know. If you meet me and call me Madge or Jessi, I will answer to both. Either way you're getting the same woman: loud, colorful, and defined by what she loves — including a name a little girl borrowed from her Grammy's stories and never gave back.
The original Madge isn't with us. She never knew a little girl heard her name in Grammy's stories and decided it belonged to a superhero. Every time someone calls me Madge, I remember who I am.
This post is for her.
What about you — do you have an alter ego, a nickname with a story, a name you'd grab if you could? Tell me. I collect these now.
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