Tomorrow is my Oath Ceremony and my name change will be official. A name I’ve carried for 39 years will formally become something else tomorrow.
It’s bittersweet in a way. It was a name chosen with love but sadly one I’ve never identified with. So I’ve gone against the grain and will be formally changing it tomorrow.
What that will feel like at 12 noon, I cannot say. I’m hoping there will be something to mark the passing of one identity into another. Maybe the burden of sadness I’ve carried around will be left at the door of the court room and I’ll emerge myself at the end of it.
Maybe it will all be the same and all that will be different is that I now have to change my name in 100 different places because my life is meshed into the grid.
18 months ago I decided I would change my name and I test-drove one for a while. Isabella. After a few months I decided it didn’t quite fit so it morphed into the Celtic version, Isobeil.
Maybe I’ll be more me for the first time in a lifetime and finally carve out an identity of my own choosing. Maybe I’ve had that power all along….
1 more night and I’ll have something resembling an answer to this.
Sharon, it’s been real but we have to part ways here. You were the first half of my life, Isobeil will be the last half. You can finally rest and put the baggage to bed. You carried it well and I thank you for that.
