Identity Crisis
Today is the final day of Momalom’s “Five for Ten Challenge,” and the theme is Yes!
Posted by Elizabeth
I arrived home from a workout at the gym early Monday afternoon and made my way to the mailbox, where a slim envelope from the Social Security Administration was waiting for me. My new Social Security card! I held it in my hands and stared at the name typed in official block letters. My new name.
Elizabeth Marie Thomas
Except this wasn’t my new name. The name I had carefully penned on my application, after five years of hemming and hawing, was Elizabeth Grant Thomas, my maiden name nestled between the old and the new. I immediately went into panic mode and began making frantic calls to the national and local offices of the Social Security Administration. After being placed on interminable hold, I called Maikael at work, who suggested I go to the local branch first thing the next morning and straighten everything out. “I can’t wait until tomorrow,” I shrieked. “I’m having an identity crisis!”
When I got married five Julys ago, I didn’t feel strongly about keeping or changing my name. I couldn’t settle on any of the myriad possibilities for a new name, so I decided to wait it out and see what emerged naturally. But nothing – even my own maiden name – ever felt quite right. I remained deeply ambivalent about what I should call myself, and, depending on my mood, alternated between different permutations of “Grant” and “Thomas” when introducing myself. It was often confusing, both for myself and others, but because I felt such deep-seated ambivalence I chose the path of non-action.
Then we found out we were having a baby, and I felt a creeping desire to unite our growing family through a shared surname. In a flurry of dialogue about choosing our baby’s names, Maikael and I had many conversations about this proposed name change, and in the end I settled on Elizabeth Grant Thomas because it was the name that had stuck the most over the past five years. If nothing else, it was the name printed on the top of my stationary.
Names are an important piece of our identity. They signal where we’ve been and who we are, and the decision to change or keep one’s name is a deeply personal decision. Why I have felt such uncertainty about my own name is unclear to me. The counselor in me sees all sorts of subconscious underpinnings here: Am I uncomfortable in my own skin? Does my identity not feel solidified? Am I in a constant state of metamorphosis? In a world where people tend to quickly change their names after they get married, or don’t at all, I feel like a name-changing pariah.
Once I arrived at the Social Security Office, I was briskly informed that, although my name had been entered into the system incorrectly, my surname was now Thomas, and without additional identification to prove my identity, nothing further could be done. The logic seemed suspiciously circular – weren’t they the ones who had changed my name in the first place? – but what I was instructed to do was to get a new license that stated my name as Elizabeth M. Thomas, go back to Social Security with the license and change my name to Elizabeth Grant Thomas, and then return once again to the licensing bureau to have a new license issued in new new name.
The other option was to keep the name that the Social Security Administration had given me.
I slinked back home defeated, feeling more entrenched than ever in my mounting identity crisis, literally caught between two selves. If I felt strongly about being a Grant Thomas rather than a Marie Thomas, Maikael said, I should go through the extra two steps to get the name I wanted. He advised me to sleep on it and approach it fresh in the morning, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
How did I feel about Elizabeth Marie Thomas?
The truth of the matter is, it’s a version of my name that five years of deliberation had never generated. Had fate intervened on my behalf? Did an outside force push me out of my ambivalence? How important are middle names? Does my family name of Grant carry any more weight or importance than Marie, a name my parents chose for me? Wasn’t Oprah’s iconic name the result of a similar clerical error? Perhaps I should just leave well enough alone? After spending the evening in deep contemplation, I realized that it wasn’t that I didn’t like the name; I simply didn’t know how I felt about it. And maybe I never would, because I felt just as ambivalent about it as I always had about any of the other names I had considered for myself. Once I got over the initial shock of seeing a name I hadn’t chosen for myself in black and white, I realized that I didn’t feel any greater affinity to “Grant” than “Marie.”
My objective had been to share a surname with my family, and ultimately, “Thomas” — whether prefaced with “Marie” or “Grant” — was going to take some getting used to. Identities don’t change overnight, and neither do we.
Rather than fighting it, I’ve made the decision to keep the unexpected name that the Social Security Administration bequeathed upon me. I know it’s not the decision that everyone would make, and there are undoubtedly some readers out there who are thinking, “Are you kidding? You waited five years to change your name to just the right thing, and you’re going to lie down and accept the name that someone decided you should have?” And maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll live to regret this decision. But I’m also not sure what the “right thing” is – and I’m not sure I’ll know anytime soon.
In saying “yes” to this unforeseen circumstance, I can’t help but feel that I’m symbolically stepping into a new world of surprises and unbridled possibilities. I am approaching this name change as I am the next stage of my life, with eyes wide shut. Perhaps that’s what saying “yes” to life really means: taking a leap of faith into the unknown, even when it doesn’t seem to make a whole heck of a lot of rational sense, and trusting that you’ll land on your feet.
My name is changing right along with my life.
Realizing I am opening a can of worms here – and understanding that it’s a profoundly personal decision – how do you feel about the act of keeping or changing one’s name? What do names signal about our identity? Can we “rewrite” our identities by changing our names? What do you think of Elizabeth Marie Thomas versus Elizabeth Grant Thomas (be honest)? Am I crazy to let a behemoth governmental organization choose my name?
May 19th, 2010 at 8:05 am
i think this is the name that was chosen for you.
first by your parents, and then by some government office.
every once in a while, I’ll surprise myself and accidentally sign my old name even though has been almost a decade since I’ve been called that.
It stays with you, even if it isn’t on your social security card.
May 19th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Michelle, that’s how I feel, too. I didn’t choose my name: my name chose me!
May 19th, 2010 at 8:32 am
I just love how social security’s snafu becomes your problem to correct (or not).
When it comes to names, I’m more of a phonics person. I’ve always loved the way Elizabeth Grant sounds and looks in print. But how important is a middle name? Ultimately you’re keeping the name your parents chose to call you by and changing to one unified family name. Maybe that’s all that matters.
I have to admit it’ll be hard not to follow up your first name with “Grant” when I address envelopes to you from here on.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:37 am
As someone who must manage a huge list for a nonprofit organization, I silently bless those women who get married and take their husbands’ names. It makes the process of putting them in alphabetical order so much easier! Closer to home, my children don’t know what to call the moms of their friends who didn’t take their husband’s last name, and hence don’t match their children either. on this point, I am a traditionalist. I think it’s nice when a family all shares the same surname, from a logistical to an existential point of view.
May 19th, 2010 at 10:14 am
I would disagree with Jennifer, although her opinion is totally sensible. When I got married, I kept the name that I had, since it was so clear to me that that was exactly who I was — taking another name felt simply impossible.
Now my kids have my surname squished in theirs as a middle name, and I’m not crazy about that, but I can’t imagine ever changing it.
(I say all this with apologies to all the list-keepers and children I’ve confused…!)
May 19th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Launa, I considered the same option: giving our children my last name. It’s amazing how many options there are out there, and again, how very personal that decision feels.
May 19th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Well, I decided to go the same route as my Mom and sister, thinking that would be a nice way to keep some tradition going. And I also felt very strongly that I wanted to have the same last name as my husband. So my maiden name is now my middle name. But I was definitely sad to lose my original middle name, as it was my Mom’s maiden name. You better believe when we have kids someday that name will appear!
In general, I just think this is one of those decisions that is monumentally personal, and no single option feels “perfect”. I decided to view the whole experience as a sort of rite of passage–towards a different phase of my life. That felt more positive than viewing it as a “loss”, which it can certainly be for some women.
I told Liz this the other day, but I have ONE item left in my maiden name…my subscription to Entertainment Weekly that I’ve had since I was 14. And I’ll NEVER change it:)
May 19th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Wow, this is government bureaucracy at its worst! Get a new drivers license so you can get a new SS card so you can get another new drivers license?! Absurd.
I like my first name – Eva. I never really felt much affection for my maiden name. And being somewhat old-fashioned, I was happy to take my husband’s name. It seems more “me” if that makes sense.
May 19th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Interesting thoughts – I’m in the process of divorce, and having changed my name upon marriage to Anne Walker Hanna, and dropping my middle name of Lloyd, I am thankful that mt maiden name is there. I’ve lived with Hanna for more than half my life, and can’t imagine not having it either; plus, I want to continue being related by name to my daughter.
May 19th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Well, Anne has already explained my perspective a bit. As a child, like Anne, my middle name was my mother’s maiden name. That was always important to me as it helped me feel that I was a “B” as much as I was an “S”. When I got married “S” got moved to the middle and the “B” (sadly, but at my mother’s pragmatic recommendation) was dropped.
I am a huge proponent of family names. I’ve never been a fan of middle names chosen only because they string nicely together between the first and last. My own maiden name and my former middle name will both be used with future children (even though we chose a different meaningful middle name for IEP).
Unlike you, I’d have gone through the extra steps to get Grant back. But I also admire your willingness to go with the flow. Also, if you eventually decide that Grant is more significant than Marie, I’m sure you can change it back.
PS – If you ever have a boy, Grant would be a great first name!
May 19th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Cecilia Lopez – I loved it.
Cecilia Vallin – I liked it.
Cecilia Thomas – I’m keeping it.
In true SMA tradition I would be – Cecilia Lopez Liñan de Vallin de Thomas. Oh no.
May 19th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
I really love and appreciate everyone’s thoughts and ideas on name changing. It helps me to sort through my own feelings of this complicated mess (uh, situation). Gale, I really like your idea for Grant as a first boy’s name someday, if the situation arose. Since we both have last names that can also be first names, you could really do a number on the kid!
May 19th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I’ve known a lot of people who don’t seem to give it a second thought to change their name once they are married. But for me, my name just FEELS like me. I like it. Simple. I know there are a lot of Leah Thompsons out there, but I have never thought I wanted to change my name. My identity is definitely tied to my name.
That being said, it becomes more complicated when kids come into the picture. I’m not too crazy about hypenated names. My husband has a hyphenated name (Vincent-Maloney,which I actually really like). But it’s problematic. No one seems to understand why he should have a hyphenated name. And he identifies with the full name, rather than one or the other. So seeing these challenges, we’re not super excited to give our kids a hyphenated name either.
But so far a hyphenated name still tops our list of options. We’re thinking Thompson-Maloney. That way the kids would have my name and part of his name. It would tie us all together. But I don’t even want to think about how confusing it could be for teachers in the future.
My sister’s fiance is planning to take our last name when they marry this summer. Too bad my husband wasn’t interested in that.
May 19th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I LOVE this post! I just love names, thinking about names, contemplating what names mean, naming things… And I get your ambivalence about your name. My husband and I both still contemplate from time to time if we did the right thing when we got married. We considered choosing an alternate last name for both of us, as neither of us were tied to our family-of-origin surnames. In the end, we walked the path of least resistance, and I changed my last name to his. I sometimes still wish (12 years later) I had chosen differently.
I have another friend who chose her own last name after getting married and then divorced. She decided that neither her maiden name nor her married name had anything to do with who she really is. So, she changed to a name that meant something to her. It was a powerful and empowering experience for her.
I think maybe you should let your “new” name rest for a while, as you did before, and then make a decision. And, just, FYI, it’s totally possible that if you go to a different SSI office, you’ll get a different answer. What you were told at this one doesn’t make sense to me. They have record of the paperwork you filed, and they *can* change their mistake. But do what suits you.
Peace!
May 19th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Thanks for your thoughts, MidnightCafe. When I brought up the issue of them having my application on file — which clearly states my preference — they said they are a “paperless office,” and that my application was shredded at the end of the day I was there. “We have no way of knowing if it was your mistake or ours,” was basically what I was told. But as you said, if I sit with it for awhile and it just doesn’t feel right, I can always change it again!
May 19th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Hey Liz,
After three trips to Social Security where they kept telling me that I had the wrong paperwork to change my name back, I gave up and left it alone. Now I have so many names, I think of them as aliases. I’m Cabatit to my family, Hopkins at work and Alexander to the rest of the world. It’s like I’m a superhero. But at the end of the day I’m just Anna, and that’s all that really matters.
May 19th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
You’re a lucky girl, Elizabeth! Your name (regardless of what you ultimately opt for) is full of love. I am the one who named you so I know. Your first name is for Suzzane Elizabeth Grant, my Canadian cousin who I’ve loved forever and your middle name is for Anna Marie Matlock, your great-grandmother who will also be loved forever. Thomas, of course, is that “special guy” that you will love forever. But the name your ears will perk-up to, more than any of the foregoing, is mom. You’ll know – and love – that name more than any other – forever.
Lots of love,
Daddo
May 20th, 2010 at 4:21 am
My former mother-in-law was amazed I took my ex’s last name. She, then, stated she was amazed I didn’t at least use my maiden name as my middle name. Until just recently, I have put my maiden surname out of my mind. I never used it on formal documents and still don’t. I have always used first, middle and last names – whatever that last name is. I still use those three for legal purposes but use my maiden name other places – like Facebook – to connect with people from my past.
May 25th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Elizabeth, this post is so fun and so heavy all at once. It flows so easily I feel like I could have kept on reading…heading from the topic of name change into that of diaper changes, is you will.
I agree with you that saying YES is taking a leap of faith, but I’m not sure I agree with the inference that it doesn’t always seem rational. I think there is this intrinsic piece of us that says YES and means it, and an intuition that the thing we are stepping into is just safe enough.
But I agree that there are irrational times. OF COURSE there, I’m just not sure that experiencing those are a way of saying YES to something. The letters Y-E-S are just too positive for me these days to associate myself with being an ass.
Hmm, I wonder if any of that makes sense. It’s rather early and I’ve only just had a few sips of coffee.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Without going into too much detail about my crazy parents I will say that I thought my middle name was Jean until I was 14, when I switched to a new school in a new state and they needed my birth certificate and I discovered my middle name was Lisa. After all, we are a country full of nicknames. The legal name is rarely what we talk about.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Cybele, that’s HILARIOUS. In a sort of sad way. You made my day with your story.