I have been married for 3 and half weeks. Everything has changed and yet nothing has changed. I feel different. I'm not sure I should, but I do! A wise woman once told me to remove the 'shoulds' from my life. All very easily said but far less easily done. Everyone has a sense of responsibility, a sense of conscience, it is part of what makes us human - our emotional attachments to those we love, the balancing act we play between our sense of duty, what we feel is expected of us, and our own desires. I have spent a good few years fixating on the former and burying in the latter.
Dear Reader - it did not do me any good.
But in that one day, we grew up. We transitioned - from playing house, to being a family.
A colleague at work today asked me how it was , to be a Mrs. I replied 'wierd, but nice. A bit grown up' Another colleague interjected saying he was surprised I had taken my husbands name, and knowing me thought that it was all a bit anti-feminist. I hadn't realised my somewhat ardent feminism had been picked up at work and was, I have to say a little taken aback! The first speaker rounded off the conversation saying he was surprised any woman took her husbands name in this day and age, and couldn't understand the continuation of what he felt was an out moded way of defining a partnership.
Then my interviewee arrived and we all got on with the day.
Husband is out tonight - he is not, suprisingly given the majority of the Worlds population, watching the World Cup. He's actually having the VIP treatment at the O2 and, for all I know is drinking champers with Jon Bon Jovi as we speak. Lucky Bugger! It is a very strange and serendipitous set of circumstances which got him to the gig, involving car vandalism, a bathroom refit, a dog sitter, and a rather impulsive wife, but I am so glad he finally got there.
And its given me the space to start this - for what its worth.
Anyway I digress - back to the name thing. I think this very simple act is what has facilitated the change. I am now a MRS. Husband now has a wife - and what's more she has the same name as him a privilege reserved only for his sister and his mother - his family. And no, contrary to what a good friend charmingly said to me on my Wedding day... I have NOT become my Mother-in-law (much as I love her!) we are starting new - forging our way ahead together - and in one simple change of documents I have legally become part of his family. Our kids will know to which clan they belong and most importantly perhaps, the dog, bless her, now has the same surname as her mummy.
