My husband and I discussed it, and his offering was to hyphenate. I never liked this solutrion because it's usually just the woman hyphenating, and where is the compromise or "partnership" in that? So I have to carry a clunky last name just to ensure mine isn't erased? That doesn't seem fair. My solution was to bump my original last name to my middle name (not "maiden" -- please let's dispense of this archaic bullshit term), so my initials transformed from "GMR" to "GRC." This was the best I could do to accommodate myself.
I didn't anticipate my mixed feelings, or how it would feel conflicting to look at things with my original name on them while carrying this new name, which wasn't "mine." Yes, you marry your spouse's family, but it still isn't your family. These people bring their own history, culture, and brand of dysfunction, and while you might carry their name, it's a bit like becoming a citizen in a new country. You live there now, but it's not truly "home."
What I'll never forget is the way he sulked when I hinted that maybe I wouldn't take his name, I'd just keep my own. I'll also never forget my mother-in-law spotting a checkbook of mine and commenting, "Giselle, you didn't change your name?" This was during the "buffer" period and instead of asking why she cared (because women are expected to not be the problem in that relationship with their husband's mother), I explained that I hadn't gotten around to it yet.
Changing your name legally is a series of tasks that occurs in sequence, starting with a trip to the social security office. I visited the one in El Paso with marriage license in hand, followed by the DMV, and last of all, I updated my passport. When I got divorced, I knew I would have to go through the same steps all over again. There wasn't an "off" switch, or a toggle that would revert my married name back to my original one. My divorce decree specifies my name change, and even if you spend the money for your divorce, you have to send a six dollar check to the county clerk to get a certified copy of your divorce decree. That was my first step; and I botched it. I sent the paper form, but missed the part where I had to include the check. They returned my request form noting that payment needed to be included. I tried again, sending in the same form, this time with the check. They sent documents back to me, and I scheduled my social security appointment online.
The day before I was set to go in, I reviewed the certified divorce decree and, to my horror, realized the first couple of pages were documents from someone else's divorce. The "certified" portion was an additional page in the back, with an official looking gold seal and the county clerk's signature. I flipped through the pages in disbelief, worried that I would be turned away for presenting someone else's paperwork. I noticed the certified page portion of the decree actually had the case number from my divorce. With a little magic called removing the staples from what the court sent me and attaching the printed out copy of the decree I received on the day of my divorce via email, I had a fix. I placed the correct documents into the manila envelope and put the envelope into the tote bag I use for work, which was where I was planning to go immediately after my appointment.
The following morning, I got there early. I couldn't remember if my appointment was for 9:20 or 9:40, so I showed up at 9, prepared to wait. There was already a crowd gathered outside of the social security office, which was situated in a small strip mall. There were two uniformed guards serving as the gatekeepers for the whole operation. They sorted people into two lines outside of the office: those with appointments lined up on the right, those without, lined up on the left. When the guard asked if I had an appointment, I said yes. The issue was, I could not remember the exact time, and I had failed to bring the post it note with the appointment confirmation number written on it. I did have my manila envelope with my cobbled together certified divorce decree and my driver's license, but I could tell it didn't matter. Before I went inside, the guard (a man), scolded me. "You can't take that in there," he said, referring to my purple 40 ounce knock off Stanley tumbler (courtesy of Aldi, IYKYK). "It's just water," I said. "It's too big! Put it in your car!" Was there a limit on what size container of water you could carry into the social security office? Were the rules from TSA airline security now bleeding into other federal facilities? I had parked around the corner in a Walgreens parking lot, there was no way I was going to go all the way back there just to stow my obnoxiously large vessel full of water in my car. In a moment of defiance, I placed the cup on the concrete beside the entrance, "I'll just put it here," I said. The guard surprised me by telling me to place it on the floor inside of the office space, next to the wall. I did, and then I went to sign in on the electronic kiosk for my appointment. When the machine produced the paper ticket with my number in line, the other guard, a woman, challenged me on my appointment. She had a list of names and appointment times, declared I didn't have an appointment, took my paper ticket from me, and dismissed me. It was such a disorienting experience, I questioned if I really did have an appointment or if I had imagined it.
This kind of treatment wasn't personal, either. Everyone waiting was treated like a suspect. The guards had Department of Homeland Security badges, and pistols holstered on their belts. What in the authoritarian regime was going on here? I left that non-appointment frazzled. I just wanted to change my name. Defeated and shaken, I collected my giant faux-Stanley tumbler and walked back to my car. This was nothing like the time consuming but unthreatening name change experience I had gone through twenty five years ago. There had been no armed guards deciding whether my appointment was legitimate or not. Back then going to the social security office was remiscent of visiting the DMV, not whatever this was.
Fortunately, I made not one but two appointments; the first had been a bust, but the second was scheduled to occur twelve days later, on a Monday morning. This time I had written down my appointment time, and I knew I had entered the key information from my divorce decree. On the Sunday before my second name change attempt, anxiety set in. What if I got turned away again? What if they noticed the divorce decree wasn't cleanly stapled with courthouse worthy staples, what if (insert unlikely but still possible scenario here)? If they turn me away, I'll just make another appointment, I told myself. Ultimately this wasn't important, it meant I would have to carry this last name that never quite felt like it was mine for just awhile longer. But it's the principalities.
The next morning, I busied myself with puttering around and cleaning up the house. This appointment wasn't until 11:10, which meant a lot of puttering, and a lot of time in my head. I remembered a time when my ex-husband shared how he and his friends had laughed over a female classmate of theirs married a man who took her name. He found it funny, and couldn't understand why a man would do this. When he shared with me, I understood he expected me to laugh right along with him. "I don't see what's so funny," I said. We talked about it, and to his credit, he checked his friends the next time one of them brought up this classmate and her husband, but only because I had called him out on it. When I thought more deeply about the implications behind finding it funny, I felt hurt. Dominance is baked into marriage and the individuals entering the marriage hold the responsibility to tailor the arrangement to suit their specific needs, regardless of what is written in the societal script. When the script heavily favors one member over the other, will they both be willing to meet in the middle? Here were these black men, who should have had a full understanding of the dehumanization that comes with taking on a "master's" name and erasing their own, yet they expected their wives to do exactly this. This reversed situation was an affront to their masculinity, and something to laugh about. Without saying it, the implication was, this man who had adopted his wife's last name as his own was a little bitch. And if this was how these guys thought, to the point of joking about this couple's decision as a group, what did they think of their own wives? Marriage is a property sale dressed up as a romantic endeavor, but there can be no true partnership unless both participants understand and agree that they are true equals. Expecting one person to delete their name and replace it with someone else's is not a compromise, but an expectation of self abandonment; we keep expecting this from women and then wondering why they lose their identities in their marriages. We marvel at the disproportionate percentage of women filing for divorce. The men in these situations will claim they were "blindsided," after all, the marriage was working just fine --for them.
A close friend texted me to check on me; she remembered my appointment was that morning. "Are you bringing your water?!!!" she asked. "I'll go thirsty," I replied. Another friend offered to call, and when he did, I admitted being angry at myself for changing my name when I didn't want to in the first place. He told me to give myself grace. "You made that decision based on the information you had at the time," he said, adding, "But things change."
I puttered around awhile longer, and then gathered my things for my appointment, which I hoped would be more boring DMVish and less Gestapo-y this time around. A creature of habit, I parked at Walgreens again, and hoofed the last block to the strip mall on foot. The crowd outside of the building was smaller than last time, and this time I had brought my notebook with my appointment time noted. I also wrote my name in the notebook for the guard to check against her list. My tumbler remained firmly planted in my car's cupholder.
When the guard checked me, she saw my name inside of my my notebook and agreed that I did have an appointment. I went inside to sign into the kiosk and get my ticket, and the guard ushered me back outside because there were no available seats in the waiting area. By the time there was a seat, the guard directed me back inside, and the first number I heard called out was two numbers after my ticket number. Oh no.
The friend who called me texted to check on my progress. "I have a ticket and I'm waiting," I wrote, cautious not to claim success. As the numbers being called kept going up, I talked to the guard again.
"These numbers are random," she said, "Go sit down, you'll get called." The woman sitting beside me shared her ticket number, which was five before mine. The numbers kept getting called, in sequence. This didn't appear to be random. To add to the confusion, the speaker system was one of those portable back yard party karaoke deals but when used in an office setting with hard surfaces, there's lots of reverb. Added to that, some of the social security employees had to struggle to pronounce certain names. And on top of that, there was no visual display showing which ticket was called and which desk was serving the customer. This place could have taken a few cues from the DMV.
After 40 minutes of waiting for our numbers to be called, my seat neighbor talked to the guard again. The guard acquiesced, and talked to one of the social security employees. My seat neighbor got called, and I figured I wasn't far behind. The guard spoke to someone at another desk and miracle of miracles, my name got called over the janky little speaker system. I gathered my documents and hurried over to my assigned desk.
"I called you earlier," the woman behind the desk said. "The guard told me to sit outside," I replied. I detected the tiniest eyeroll and suspected this wasn't the first time this had happened. I pulled out my documents and watched the woman behind the desk squint at my divorce decree, which specified and spelled out changing my married name to my original name.
"What are you changing it to?" the woman asked.
In a brief moment of wisdom, I had also grabbed a copy of my birth certificate before leaving the house that morning. Even though it wasn't required, I figured it would be a helpful reference instead of making someone scan through divorce decree lawyerese. I pushed the birth certificate under the plexiglass that separated us. "It's going to look like the name here," I said.
In less than ten minutes, it was done. She handed me a receipt which sated that I would receive the new card within two weeks. There was other information on the receipt, too. You can request a card replacement three times within a year, and you can replace your card ten times in your entire life. Who came up with this stuff, I wondered. And, when did you need a social security card anyway? I had lost both of my previous ones ages ago.
This morning, less than a week later, I checked the mail and found my new social security card waiting for me, with my new old name on it.
Name change process, zero out of five stars, do not recommend.
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