No, I Am Not Her

So it’s April and that means several things.
It’s time for Camp NaNoWriMo.  It’s time for The 100 Days Project. And it’s Blog Along with Effy month.

There is no theme, no prompts.  It’s write whatever you feel like writing for the blog along.  And coming into this I had no idea where I was going to start.

Last week, in her group, Effy spoke in a live about wanting our wants and then asked us to make a list of ten things we want. Then pick one and dig deeper.  Well I came up with eleven, but I’m sure that some of those could be actually one want and individual wants. Most if not all of them hinge on money, having it or the lack of it.  I narrowed my list down to two I wanted to dig into.

The first one I picked was changing my name back to maiden name.  I don’t have the money to file for a divorce, so this is my other option. (if/when I should ever have enough money. Couple hundred for a name change vs a few thousand for a divorce.)

Why did I want to do this? What  would it mean for me?  How would it make me feel?
What does changing my name look like? And many other questions.

Well thinking about it, digging into it raised a lot of negative notions.  Regardless of what name I use, I’m still her  daughter. And with that, comes a lot of fucking baggage.

My mother burned A LOT, and I mean a lot of bridges and people in her life.  As well as leaving a wake of destruction behind her.  She didn’t care who got hurt in the process as long as she came out on top.  She spread a lot of lies about me over the years and me not being there to defend myself, people believed them.  And there were the people who just assumed that because she was my mother, I must be just like her.

I think at some point I have given up trying to dispel people’s notions that I am like her just because she birthed me.  I no longer live in the area I grew up, so those people’s opinions shouldn’t even matter.  And yet, sometimes I feel like I should still fight against their ideations.

One of those battles is the love/hate desire to go back to my maiden name.  I know I have probably spoken about that here before.  There seems to be a certain narrative that goes along with my surname at birth. Not too much of it that I see in a positive light.  I can remember how I used to long to escape the name.  As if  some how that would magically make everything better.

But I learned that things didn’t suddenly improve with getting married and taking my ex’s name.  I was still her daughter and people still looked at me the same way.  Still had the same, or worse opinion of me thanks to her lies.

I think I am coming to the conclusion that I want to create a new narrative for my maiden name.  I can’t change the story that has been told. I can’t change the history. BUT I can change the future of it going forward.  Sometimes I think it feels like a step back. And I don’t know how to change that thought.  I am trying to look at it as a reclaiming, if I should ever have the money to do it.

The other thing is, there is only one with that name. And that’s me. So I feel that makes me unique.  One of a kind.

My mother told her version for years.  I think she told the lies so often she began to believe them herself. I can no longer confront her on any of it.  I never had the chance to go back an do that.  She died a few years ago, so I can no longer ask her why.

I feel it’s coming to a time for me to tell my story now.  Maybe no one will care, maybe no one will listen. But eventually, I will have to speak it.  And then maybe I can say my name and be proud of it.