Is it time for a change?

I'm seriously considering changing my name. I've been mulling over the idea for quite a while, and I've not at all decided yet but at the moment it's leaning that direction.

Even though some folks warn me that it's a pain in the ass, I'd hyphenate. I haven't lived with this name for 50 years to just completely walk away from it. And there's a nice rhythm to our two names together: Chaya Victor-Ramirez (not our real names, but you get the idea). And the cool coincidence is that our actual two last names made up the name of the doctor who delivered me and signed my birth certificate, like "Dr. Victor Ramirez."

As much as all my 1970's feminist indoctrination screams at me to not take his name, there's a lot that feels really good about it. I'm not even totally sure why - I mean, I NEVER remotely considered taking my legal husband's name when I got married for the first time, so why now, at this age, do I want to go through the hassle of it? Well, honestly, the hassle of it is one of the big factors that sways me towards not changing it. Social security cards, drivers license, deeds, bank accounts... OY! It gives me a headache just to think about it. Not to mention the fact that if we could actually be LEGALLY married, the name change process would be a quick rubber-stamp process, but nooooo, I have to go to court, petition the judge, give a reason that the judge has to agree to, swear that I'm not trying to break the law or hide from creditors, and spend $$$ to publish a notice for a full two weeks in the local paper so that anyone who thinks it's a bad idea for me to change my name has a chance to challenge it. Straight girls don't have to go through that shit.

(Of course, it's also a bit weird and amusing and frightening that I'd have to do the name change through V's court, and they could potentially even need to pull in a judge from another county to make the decision if the judges here think there's too much conflict of interest involved, and that judge might end up being some conservative assclown who is pissed at having to drive an hour just to hear some queer girl talk about wanting to change her name to match that of the cute butch in uniform standing nearby...)

But I'm really liking the whole level of commitment that goes with changing my name. Which is a bit weird because V really doesn't want to consider changing HIS name, but I'm feeling totally ok with that (for now anyway - another factor towards not changing it is "will I resent later that I did it and he didn't?").

What feels totally anti-feminist and yet totally right to me is that one of the big things in the "for" column is how much it would mean to V. I waited until after I was at least leaning clearly on the "change it" side to tell him that I was considering it, even though he'd told me long ago that he didn't want to consider changing HIS name. I asked him, "on a 1-5 scale, how much would you like it if I changed my name to Victor-Ramirez?" and after hemming and hawing through some guilt about how that wouldn't be fair to ask that if he's not too keen on changing his own name but maybe he could consider it and would be ok with it, I finally got him to answer the damn question about his feelings and he said, with great enthusiasm and a HUGE smile, "a TEN!!!"

I'm guessing/projecting, but I think that he went through so much rejection and loss in his early life, followed by so much presumption of the immanence of rejection and loss in his later adult life, that it's a Seriously Really Big Deal to him that I'd publicly display THAT level of commitment to him. And I'm leaning towards thinking that maybe that's a very special wedding gift that I'd like to give to him.

Plus at least with a Latin part to my last name, it would make at least a little bit more sense to folks in this very brown heavily south-American town as to why my granddaughters call me "Abuela."