A rose by any other name...

Today's little minutiae for musing is names...and their meaning.  The geeklings father and I were married for seven years, and when we married, I took his name.  Now that we're no longer together, I keep flip flopping on whether to reclaim my maiden name or to keep "his" which frankly after seven years kind of feels like "mine" just as much, especially since it is also the name that my children have.

On the one hand I have had this name for pretty much all of my adult life - it is "who I am" personally and professionally.  There are only a handful of people in my life now that aren't family who have ever known me by my maiden name.  There's also the not insignificant issue of wanting to have the same surname as my children, not to mention the hassle and expense involved in changing everything back over to my maiden name...and then what if I get married again, and there's another name change...might as well save myself the hassle and leave it as it is until I marry again!

On the other hand, the split has been fairly emotionally messy, at least for me and I've been fairly keen on ditching significant "us" stuff.  Things of monetary value that I've sold, I'm putting the money into everyday expenses rather than buying anything I will look at and think about where the money came from for it.  My life is my own now and I want no emotional ties.

At the moment, I'm landing up on the side of "I'll keep it" and my identity is what I make it.  It's important to me that my children feel a sense of family in our unit of three and I remember feeling that my own mother reclaiming her name after my parents' divorce was somehow a rejection of me, as I had to explain over and over, why my name was different.  For professional reasons, it's also good for me to have a name other than my maiden name to establish my professional identity in my own right, as my father's name is known in the industry.

And at the end of the day...whatever you call me, I am still who I choose to be and my name and it's meaning from now, are what I make it.