Adventures in Name Changing, Part 3

Today I went to the DMV to try to get my last name changed on my license, my second attempt. My first attempt was last week when I came on a Friday (yay summer half day Fridays!) and the line was 4 hours long, according to the information desk. Today, it was half that, 2 hours long. I considered going into the line and then sense kicked in. I have a job. I can't just take off 2 hours.

The lady in front of me was doing the same thing. We got to chatting while waiting for the information desk. She went straight into the line. When she saw me leaving she waved and said, "You're not staying?" I said, "I can't do two hours, I'll try earlier tomorrow morning."

A few things to note.

I made the decision to change my name. I'm not happy about it, just like I wasn't happy when my original plan of 30 people wedding in a restaurant ballooned into 115 people. However, I am an adult, and I made this decision for the good of my family. This does NOT mean that I'm happy or excited about it. (Yep, if you were looking for ponies and unicorns, you'd better move on to another blog.)

I thought about the lady in front of me in line, and I envied her. And I envied all the other women in the world who were excited about changing their name. My name is part of my identity and I'm having a lot of trouble letting go of it.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a believer in gender roles. Aside from the obvious biological tasks that must be done by males and females, I don't believe in general social gender statements of "this is what men/women are like so deal with it." And then I thought about all the other things that women are expected to do, things I know my friends and family have done, just because that's what women do. Even the task of planning the wedding by default falls into the woman's hands (not speaking for same-sex couples, obviously).

Just think for a moment. How many times have you said, "I'm going to leave work for a half an hour to check out my venue/make a few vendor calls/look at a florist"? And now, think about how many times your man has said that. If he does half of it and you do the other half, then you are a lucky lucky woman. For me, it was about 10 percent him, and that was with some nagging because I was overwhelmed. By far I don't see the men in my office leave work for any little errand, because they have their WIVES to do it.

Women complain that we do too much, we get paid unequal amounts for the same amount of work. And it sucks and I don't disagree with that. But maybe, just maybe, we are in a hell of our own making. Because these little things, these random errands? They add up. People notice when you're not in the office, more than you might think. And I don't even want to talk about the impact to my career when it comes time for babies.

As for my personal name changing adventure, I'm going to try one more time, even earlier in the morning sometime this week. And if I can't get that done in the half hour to one hour slot I've assigned it then I'm going to take my hard-earned half day summer Friday and fucking wait.