painted_lady

^ What lemongrass said.

Walter just came up with an excellent compromise. We’re both changing our names to Badass. Or Motherfucker. We can’t decide. Mr. And Mrs. Motherfucker has a nice ring to it, I think.

@lbh – You put that much better than me. And I think in any minority – religious, sexual, gender, ethnicity – the visible ones become the representation of the whole (the “How do I get women to date me?” issue, like all women are the same). So the problem isn’t with feminism or Christianity or La Raza or whatever, it’s with the people who make the mistake of equating a part to the whole. It’s a mistake – for me at least – to refute a belief system because someone else is too ignorant to know what it really means.

Anyway, back on-topic – I love that all these different opinions on name changes seem to be confirming to people that they’ve made the right choice. I know reading so many comments along the lines of “I couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Hislastname!” is confirming for me that I won’t ever be happy taking Walter’s name. I don’t know, is the opposite true for those of you who want to change your names and are reading my crazy, erratic thoughts? Also, I love that even though having the choice isn’t always assumed, we seem to be heading that way.

My boyfriend told me once that he was fine with whatever I did as long as I didn’t hyphenate. I was thinking I would hyphenate at the time – seemed like a good compromise – and so I told him to brace himself to be very irritated by my name if we got married. I jokingly offered that he could change his middle name to my last name and I would do the same, and he said he wouldn’t mind except he has a sentimental attachment to the combo of his first and middle name. And I can absolutely respect that, because I feel the same way. So I started seriously thinking about keeping my name, and I told him so. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that because he didn’t like hyphenates, that meant I would take his name…though I’d already expressed a hesitancy to do so. Hope springs eternal? You only hear what you want? Anyway, he got all bummed and I got all guilty because that’s what I do.

But here’s what decided it for me: in all the guilt and angst of this, I started trying to think of compromises, and the first thing that occurred to me as a crazy potential solution was to ask him if he would change his last name. I rejected it out of hand because oh my god, I would never ask him to do that, change his identity for me, I would never be able to be comfortable with the fact that he did that, would always feel terrible anytime I heard or read his name, and so I continued trying to think of compromises.

It didn’t occur to me until much, much later: I would never ask him to change his name – I would feel too awful. And yet why was I considering someone else’s asking that of me to be perfectly normal? How was I so ready to accept the inevitability of doing what I couldn’t bring myself to ask of another person? No! That wasn’t okay! So I’m keeping my name. I finally explained this to my boyfriend, and he said he totally understood and wouldn’t bring it up again. And he hasn’t.

I’m learning to listen to my instincts more closely – if something feels “off” in a situation, it very likely is. That’s huge, because I’ve never thought of myself as especially intuitive, but I am, as it turns out. Which is awesome.

I’ve learned how to keep an open mind – I’m used to being one of the smartest and most opinionated people in the room, and being in the mix with equally smart and opinionated people is always good for remembering I don’t know everything. I’m learning when to temper my opinions with kindness and when to be emphatic, and that just because I disagree with someone doesn’t mean I dislike them or that we will always disagree. Being wrong doesn’t always mean I’m weak, and going back and saying, you know, you made me re-think how I feel can sometimes be a completely rewarding experience.

Thank you, Wendy! Please let yourself recharge and get healthy – we all love what you’ve created!