Changing Faces

I am in the process of changing my facebook page to my maiden name. It is the name I use as my author name and the one I use for this blog. I am changing more than my page, I am changing internally, too. I feel the shift as if I were having growing pains, the kind I felt when I was a child. The twangs are similar, but I am not going to get physically taller, unfortunately. I will however grow spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. In the end, just as when I was a child I will benefit from the pain I feel now, but it is hard to see the end result when I am in the midst of the process.

I have been asked, "Why change pages?" I don't have a pat answer for that except to say things weren't working as I would have hoped and it was time to do something different. Why use my maiden name? Because the truth is, I miss my name. I have given it up a couple of times now, and I really miss being mind, body, soul and name who I was when I started this journey forty six years ago. I had the audacity to say I wanted to be the person I was born to be. I took my husband's name because it was important to him. My love for him is bigger than my own need to feel authentic. This change gives me the chance to have my cake and celebrate it too. I love being Michael's wife. I look at it as if it were a privilege, because ultimately it is. He is the kindest man I have ever known. It was unthinkable for me to turn down his request to be his wife in every aspect including his name. I feel honored that he is wanting to share his his name, home and life with me. How could I refuse?

But what about me? I am no different than anybody else when it comes to marriage and family. I have lost myself multiple times while I took care of those I love, living day to day, doing what is necessary for them and attempting to keep my family intact. This feeling is not male or female. Every person I know regardless of gender has battled their way through a mine field of what is right to sacrifice and what is too far. What I am certain of is I needed to feel myself in my own skin with my own name, the one I was born with, the one I grew up with, the one that makes me feel the most like me.

It's ironic to me to feel this way now, when not that long ago when I was in my twenties I was willing to be anybody else, but me. I hated who I was and thought being anybody else was so much better. I thought everybody had answers that I failed to find in every aspect of life. I felt like a failure. It was not the first time I felt like that, and I found out, that it would be a recurring theme for me through years later. It wasn't until I was in my late thirties that I discovered that I missed being the dorky, goofy, ridiculously verbal me. I liked the fact that I blurted out things that were always honest and mostly inappropriate. I liked the fact that I loved to my bones and much to my younger self's dismay remained open and vulnerable to a world that often times squashed me like a bug. I found that I could revel in my optimism without fear of recrimination from my cognitive self. I discovered that I could be exactly who I was born to be, without the utter embarrassment that I had known as a child. I am not even a little perfect. I am just me and that is good enough. Finally, that is good enough for me.

It has taken all the years I have been a beating heart for me to be comfortable in my own skin. I still work diligently on being a better person, kinder, more forgiving, more loving, more accepting of others even when I disagree with what they think or I don't understand. I don't always need to understand. What I need to do is listen, openly, with my heart in full gear before my ears ever start to do their work. I try and remember that today is all I have for now and that my job is to say, "I love you" while I still can, because there will come a day when I will no longer be around to do it. Being on the right side of my own history is my number one priority.

Changing my facebook page to my maiden name is not earth shattering, it will not cure cancer and it won't change the world even in the slightest. What is does do is give a little back to me. It will be daily reminder that I am who I was supposed to be and now is the time for me to embrace it, cherish it and use all my experiences as a positive force in the world around me. It's my way of saying I am still here.