Handing Off My Last Name: Partnership & Recklessness

When I was a pigtail-adorned little girl, rocking the same bushy bangs I still do today, growing up was for one thing: getting married.

Some women want to be mothers. Some want to live every day like it's their last, chasing dopamine high after dopamine high. Some want to rule the world – to end it. Some want all three.

My desires – naturally – have changed over the course of my unsteady steps through early adulthood, but the desire to be married has never gone away. The ultimate partnership. The strongest bond.

Is it?

I think back to evenings spent holding onto my girls, my women, laughing until stitches formed in our sides, and I remember how much I loved them then and how much I do now. I think back to wiping away their silent tears, wishing I could just let them pour their grief into the empty space in my chest if it made things lighter – easier.

I think back to the boys, the men, who lifted me through my late teens and early 20s when a father figure couldn't, teaching me one patient man at a time that I could feel safe within masculinity.

My last name is not mine. It is my father's. He does not know me. Not anymore. I do not know him. Not anymore.

Then why does it hurt so much to let it go?

I imagine it's akin to giving away a part of myself. No matter how grey that part is.

My new last name will be familiar. One that rolls off my tongue easily. One that I can swirl around in my mouth and contemplate. One that I will stare at, dumfounded, when I have to write it against the paper. That's me, I'll go.

There are a few better things in my life than the joy of being accepted as myself. For someone to not only accept but love every messy, tattered, and broken part of my psyche.

It's the feeling that grounds me when I can't feel anything at all and everything all at the same time, too much, too quickly, too loud. It's what pulls me out of a shaking panic, making me look down at my own hands (that's me), and into the eyes of the most turbulent but most consistent force in my universe.

It's the feeling that rests on my abdomen on a quiet afternoon, where I can sit as the plainest version of myself, glasses on my nose ("you look like Ann Robinson!") and write. There is no judgement, there are no eyes. There is only peace.

The human spirit can't be caged, and it can't be tied down. When am I married, will I have to walk a path that has already been predetermined?

Will my life be slaving over stoves and thankless cleaning, appointment-keeping, illness-tending, pleasure-giving, children-raising, and dreams-forgetting?

I have so much more life to live.

I hold onto the hope that whatever God is out there has plans for me. I hold onto the love that keeps me warm and keeps me stable, and I picture a life where every day feels like living, and where my character is one that flourishes, not flounders.

Standing there in white, the little girl I was will be standing high on her toes next to me. This partnership – this secure, tender, devotion will be for her.

And the last little fragment of my father will only be left visible under a microscope, as it should be. All will be well.