My last name

My last name is 9 letters. It's at the beginning of the alphabet (B) and it's usually mispronounced. I'm not sure why. It's pretty easy to read. There are authors who share that same name. It's not common but it's still not so uncommon that it's unheard of.

I have mentioned before that I have a major fear of being typical. Well, the "typical" bride changes her name to her new husband's name. I, being so untypical and rebellious just for the sake of saying i'm not typical, never wanted to change my name. I've always said "I'm not property" and "Why can't he take MY name" and all the other wannabe feminist musings, but really all it was was that I didn't want to be like everyone else.

So before Jared and I got engaged, I told him I'd never take his name. Yeah, pretty mean, and he still wanted to marry me. But now it's closer adn closer to the wedding (3 months tomorrow...eek!) and I can't wait...again, I CANT WAIT...to take his name! Oh man, I'm so excited to take his name. I want everything to be "Mehgan C***" now. I want to go ahead and change it on Facebook. I want to get all of my legal documents changed already. I want to change my email addresses to include my future last name. I want to be a C*** (ha, it looks like I'm typing obscentities there...)!

His last name is 4 letters and still at teh top of the alphabet. It's also common but not so common that everyone will have it. It is the last name of a famous musician, so we get a lot of jokes about that, but I don't care. I want that last name! I want to wear it proudly and say "Why, yes, I AM Mehgan C***. Nice to meet you. I am Jared's wife. Yes, yes, we had a lovely wedding. Did I tell you my new name? It's C***."

I just feel so detached from my current last name. I was typing it the other day on a site and had to look for a second to see if I spelled it right. Then I really started looking at it. Every letter. Sounding each letter out. Obviously I've spelled my own name for 28+ years and know how to spell it and how to say it. But it just doesn't seem me anymore.

Let me explain. I'm not completely attached to my family. I love them. I really do. But we're just not close anymore. Once my grandparents on my dad's side died, it's like we all went our separate ways. We still communicate and what not, but with the exception of some cousins, my relationship with my family doesn't extend beyond Facebook friends and Christmas cards, as much as I love all of them. My grandparents were the glue, and they're not here to hold it together anymore. My sister has her husband's last name, my grandparents are gone, my dad and I are not close anymore, and a few cousins I'm still close with are the only ones who hold the name anymore since they're male. My grandparents were married 61 years, and I have a few uncles adn aunts who are married long-term, but I'm just not a B******** anymore.

Now, Jared's family is another story. They are all close. They love each other. His dad is an only child and so his grandparents have just 2 grandchildren (my fiance and his sister). But the thing is, they're close. They have a lot of love in their family, even though that side is small. And his grandparents have a nice happy longstanding marriage. My fiance's parents are lovely people who have a great marriage and are married I think 27 years now. I, being the superstitious person I am, feel like it's almost good luck to adopt his last name so that we'll have a blissful marriage. And I'm glad to do that.

So I can't wait to go through the long and tedious process to change my name. Sitting at the Social Security office and DMV to get things switched over. Making a new email account. Changing my bank account. Oh, it's goign to be fun and blissful.

And I have to admit, I already made a Skype account, since I just got it, with my married name. And it felt great. I even put my Skype name as my status on Facebook yesterday so people can contact me there. That was a good feeling.