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When my mother and father divorced, she kept her name. This was a little odd, not just because she had taken his name when they married, but because we moved back to her parents' town where everybody knew her as "A's oldest daughter" and many people had never known her with a married name. I feel like it fit her better than her maiden name, though; she's always able to navigate the odd pronunciation of it, sign with it nicely, and it rounds out her name in a way that her first name didn't. It also gives her a little heft, now that she's back in her hometown where everybody knows her parents. She's independent that way.
After five years, I'm starting to feel attached to my name in the same way. I found an old college book of mine tonight with my maiden name signed into it, and it looks funny and awkward. I practiced from the time I began learning cursive all the way through college, and I could never get the proportion of the letters right. My first "r" never matched my second "r", I got distracted halfway through trying to make the two of them match, and the whole thing dribbled off the page strangely. It was almost like I spent sixteen years trying to forge my own name and never got it right.
As soon as I began signing my married name, my signature looked like it belonged to a grown-up; I start and end with an E now, I build some momentum on the loops of the k and the m so I maintain speed at the end of my name, and I have shaved a couple seconds off signing a credit card receipt (think of all the knitting minutes gained!) It's also my son's last name, and since I'm also called by his first name anyway ("Doug-mommy, look at this!") it seems like a natural fit.
My only challenge is that I liked my middle name too much to drop it, and wasn't ready to give up my maiden name entirely when I made the change. So now I have four names, none of which match that well, like some imperious old French lady. I have two middle initials, but unfortunately they are "M" and "C", so if I try to put both middle initials into a database, inevitably the computer will translate it as faux-Irish.
For the next week, however, I suppose that's all right.
After five years, I'm starting to feel attached to my name in the same way. I found an old college book of mine tonight with my maiden name signed into it, and it looks funny and awkward. I practiced from the time I began learning cursive all the way through college, and I could never get the proportion of the letters right. My first "r" never matched my second "r", I got distracted halfway through trying to make the two of them match, and the whole thing dribbled off the page strangely. It was almost like I spent sixteen years trying to forge my own name and never got it right.
As soon as I began signing my married name, my signature looked like it belonged to a grown-up; I start and end with an E now, I build some momentum on the loops of the k and the m so I maintain speed at the end of my name, and I have shaved a couple seconds off signing a credit card receipt (think of all the knitting minutes gained!) It's also my son's last name, and since I'm also called by his first name anyway ("Doug-mommy, look at this!") it seems like a natural fit.
My only challenge is that I liked my middle name too much to drop it, and wasn't ready to give up my maiden name entirely when I made the change. So now I have four names, none of which match that well, like some imperious old French lady. I have two middle initials, but unfortunately they are "M" and "C", so if I try to put both middle initials into a database, inevitably the computer will translate it as faux-Irish.
For the next week, however, I suppose that's all right.
