Tonight one of the NaBloPoMo prompts caught my attention: "What are you called?" It grabbed me because
When my mom named me she shortened both her first and last names instead of giving me my own unique name. Certainly I'm glad for my middle name, Jo, which was not only my mom's but my grandmother's too. My daughter's middle name is Jo ( which is also her paternal grandmother's name) and she gave Coraline the longer, original middle name, Josephine. I digress .....
I disliked my first name so much that once I could talk I wouldn't let my family use it. I insisted my name was JoJo. They changed it to Jody, and I accepted that compromise. When I went to school though, the teacher called me by my first name, and so did everybody else. I hated it, but I wasn't given a choice. I had to answer to it. My immediate family continued to call me by my chosen nickname. Nobody else did.
And so I've gone through life with a name I don't associate with me. In my mind, I don't call myself by that name. I don't have a name for myself at all in my own mind other than "you." Which we all know is a pronoun, not a name. My name doesn't feel comfortable when I say it, when I introduce myself to people. It's like a formality when I sign it. There's nothing inherently wrong with my name. It's perfectly fine for other people. It's not my name though.
I wonder what it would be like to have a name that I could settle into like a big comfy chair. One that reflected who I am on the inside and the outside. One reason I didn't change the one my mom gave me when I was younger is because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. That's not something I have to worry about now.
I also think about changing my last name, which is still my ex-husband's name. I've had it way longer than either of my two maiden names. I kept it when I got divorced because it was also my kids' name. But I'm getting tired of it. I want my own last name too.
I wish I'd done it years ago. Something I hate is that my kids seem to only relate to that side of the family because that's their name, my name. The identify with that name, but not with any names on my side. It's like I didn't offer up any genetic material at all.
So I'm thinking about going back to my original maiden name, my mom's maiden name. She wasn't married when I was born, so I shared her last name, my maternal grandfather's name until my mom married my stepdad and he adopted me. Then I was given his last name.
I don't think about taking that name back. Once again, it's a fine last name, but I never felt like it was my last name.
I have a chronic case of name dysphoria. I feel more comfortable calling myself Reticula than I do my own name.
So I think a lot about changing both my first and my last names .... and then I think what a hassle it would be to change my name in every place my name is known and kept. Driver's license. Military ID. Social Security. Bank. Utilities. Library. Amazon. Facebook.
And I think about asking people who've known me for decades to call me by a different name. Would they even remember it's me when my new name comes up on Facebook? Wouldn't it be weird at this stage of my life to change my name? Like I was just trying to get attention -- one of the cardinal sins of my childhood. Maybe I'm just being silly. Would it matter enough to make it worth the work it would take?
What if changing my names didn't cure my name dysphoria? And don't I have more important things to worry about?
Hell, yes, I do. I should be cooking a pumpkin or writing a novel. I don't even know why I wrote a boring blog post about it. If it weren't 1:00 am, I'd delete this and write about something interesting like vaginas or cookies or anything but why I want to change my name, except I'm too lazy and self conscious to do it.
I don't know if anybody made it to the end of this old thing, but if you did and you have any experience about names to share, I'd appreciate your input. Otherwise, you can call me Al.
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