For example. My name change. I've been married for about a year and a half. I was never crazy excited to change my name. I mean, I've gone 30 years with the same name and it's pretty awesome. Ok, I haven't always felt that way about my name, in fact I've pretty much HATED my first name for as long as I can remember; there was a long period of time when I would have preferred to go by my middle name (Ann) because I thought it was nicer. But, in my ever growing maturity, I've actually come to like my name. Somedays I even love it. It's mine. It is who I am. And now to change it because I have a piece of paper? Seems arbitrary to me. But it's important to my husband. He doesn't feel strongly about many things, but this is important to him...which means it's important to me. I've been using his last name randomly, but to make it "official", on all my cards, my banking etc....well that's a different story.
So I started looking into the process, even made a few phone calls. Made the move to change my health card first....I literally hung up the phone with the agent and burst into tears. WTF? It was an intense feeling of loss. I was loosing myself. Changing my personality, something I had grown to cherish, and changing it to someone else's. Well, just let me say, I did not expect that teary reaction. AT ALL! It actually happened twice. But, the wheels were already in motion, so what could I do now?
Pray. Through the tears. Pray. Ask the Lord to work on my heart, to release the pain I felt at loosing something that meant SO much to me. To my independence. Because that's what He asks us to do. To become one with another. And that's really hard-it's not just about the dress, and the ceremony and the party. To me it's really about creating a new unit, a daily commitment to be together and be the best for each other. I'm not sure if other women my age feel the same way. It's one thing to change your Facebook name, but it's another to change it on official documents that let you into other countries, and let you take out money from the bank. That's real life shiz yo! So I hope that as the changes come, I will be moved to be more accepting of my new name. That one day I will feel as connected to my husband's name as my own.
This video helped make me feel better, and I rocked out in my kitchen early 90's style!
1 comment:
One day that name will become so familiar to you that you will forget you had another one once. And when you sign that first name it will feel weird instead. Trust me!
And you never lose your maiden name, you just put something else there. It's always yours to use whenever you want to if you ever want to again.
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