The Death of My Name

Most little girls dream of their wedding day. They can imagine their dress, the flowers, the music, their daddy walking them down the isle to “I do…,” their first dance, and the pure magic of the moment they give themselves over to the man of their dreams. I never had that. Somehow, when I imagined myself getting married some day, the image was always black, like the vacuum of space, and I couldn’t tell you what my hair would look like or the dress that I would wear. I couldn’t imagine who would walk me down the isle because my father just wasn’t around and I didn’t know any better. I probably gave it some thought once or twice but when my imagination yielded nothing, my brain just moved on to something else – shutting down the idea all together. Who needs to be married right? I was an independent 10 year old, I didn’t need a man in my life to make it meaningful. I sure as hell didn’t know any better.

As I got older and navigated my way through a couple of long term relationships, I struggled even harder to imagine myself as someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s partner for eternity. I don’t think there was something wrong with me necessarily, my choice in men sucked a little. My first (and longest relationship to date) was with an older man, I gave him ten years and by the time I was 25 I realized that he wasn’t the person I thought he was and he faded away into some other life, in some other state, with some other person. I think I was more devastated that I had lost 10 years with someone and they still weren’t the one more so than I was over losing the person, if that makes sense? I think I was briefly devastated over losing the idea. But even as it was happening, and my heart was breaking and my hatred for his deceit consumed me, when I really asked myself if I saw forever with him? I couldn’t bring myself to say yes. Most of those years were good, we were happy, and I shared so many firsts with him. And even on the most magical nights abroad, when I looked at him, something always tugged at my soul. I knew even, in those moments, I wouldn’t marry him. He wasn’t going to stick around. (FYI – if you find yourself bored and wanting to know more,  this diary goes back 20 years. You’ll learn all about him. 😉

The next guy? Brief, a little over a year but by far the worst heartache I’ve ever experienced in my life. I probably got the closest to imagining my forever with him. On the brink of having those feelings, those visions, those bubbly sensations in the pit of my stomach, I found out he was giving those visions to someone else. Bye Felicia.

A is my rock. I wouldn’t have guessed it four years ago when we drank a little too much and ended up in bed together, creating our now 3 year old son, that he would be the man I would want to spend the rest of my life with. Funny how things work, huh? Even in the beginning, when I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t want to tell him because I knew he liked me way more than I him. I had just left my previous ex, the short blurb above, and he had just filed for divorce with his then wife – and honestly, I had decided I was done with heart break, cheaters, manipulators, the dead beat men of the world. I was just going to find me for a little while, and maybe in the midst make some poor decisions on occasion and have a little fun. Yowza! When I found out both of those things landed us into immediate parenthood and the decision to move in together to co-parent, every vision I never had before begin to come to life.

I was honest with him, he knew I wasn’t prepared to give him anything more than full rights to our child. I was so battered from my past that I just didn’t have it in me to give him anything more. But then my mom got sick, and I got bigger, and my job got more stressful, and every day he was home when I got home from work (usually late) and always there with a smile. I didn’t lift a grocery bag or wash a single dish. If mom fell, he was right there to pick her up, clean her up, if the house needed picking up he picked the place up, if I was over wrought with stress from work and the devastation from watching my mom wither away before my very eyes, he was there to rub my back, wipe away my tears, and hold me. I didn’t go through a single moment alone. I don’t think this particular entry really describes where we both were in our lives when we got together that night on September 5th, 2016, but the universe definitely saw two people who needed someone they could rely on, someone they could love, and it brought us together that night.

The moment our son was born and I was overcome with every emotion a human could possibly feel, and there was a split second where I looked at A and I looked down at our beautiful boy, and I felt nothing but overwhelming love, for both of them. In that moment I knew I loved him, A, more than I had ever loved any other person on this planet, and I knew then I wanted him to spend forever with me. He was the warmth I’d never had, the honesty, the loyalty, the dedicated, kind, considerate, loving, funny, hardworking, giving, and the most wanting of all the things I needed and wanted. He filled very void and I think ….actually I don’t think, I know, I did the same for him.

Four years to the day we promised ourselves to each other in front of our closest friends and family. The day couldn’t have been more perfect. It was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, had I even been able to once-upon-a-time.

The days leading up to our wedding, I begin to feel a bit of sadness though. Not because I was scared, or thought we were making any sort of mistake, or because I was having any pre-wedding day jitters. I knew what I wanted and I had nothing but love and excitement to marry A. I was sad because I knew my name would change, and I wanted it to, but it felt like watching my mom pass before my very eyes again. I saw my name, my identity for 35 years slowly get smaller, and smaller, and then it was just gone and I wouldn’t be me, that name, any longer. I would be his name now, his lineage. I don’t know if my mom were still alive, to continue to carry the name we shared, if it would have felt quite the same way, but ….my name, my past, is with her, wherever she is and that is where it lives on. I know that.

This is a new chapter though. This is where the W’s make a new history.