A new kind of weirdness

Hello my lovelies,

How has your Tuesday been? Mine? Well fair to crap but I did do my first, post wedding, dreaded work out and, annoyingly, I feel so much better for it!

Yesterday, I arrived home from work to find an envelope addressed to a name that didn't register immediately. It was a Boots envelope and for a moment I became confused as to who it was meant for.

Why?

It was addressed to a Mrs O Parham.

And then I remembered - that is me!

In this lull betwixst wedding and honeymoon, I did my usual and became very proactive, focusing on one particular project: changing my name.

Now, I am not going to go into an entire debate on the pros and cons of name changing. People feel very strongly about it and I myself was told be people very dear to me that I was 'letting women down', 'allowing a man to own me' and 'showing society that I was inferior'.

You already know my views on feminism. I am a big 'whatever works for you I will support' person. But I did struggle with the name issue.

I had always said that I would always be a Kerridge. It was my name, the one my parents gave to me, the one that belonged to me and no-one else. Why should I change all of that just for a man?

And, when we became engaged I stuck to that, Steve and I spent many a conversation discussing it, the different variations, the hows, the issues surrounding our future children's names if I kept mine etc..

It was only about six months before the wedding that I decided that actually, I wanted this new name. The reasons were many, some I'm even not sure of but it felt right for me. Just for me.

Perhaps it was wanting to create this new family unit - I knew that I would want to have the same name as my lovely offspring, perhaps it was the fact that it is just a name and that deep down, I knew I wasn't losing my identity, perhaps I just became sentimental and soppy in my blissful betrothed bed.

I do know that it was made easier by the fact that Steve didn't mind either way; he made it clear that while he would be proud and happy for me to take his name, it actually didn't matter to him (he did draw the line and choosing a brand new name entirely... alas, I will never be Mrs Darling or Olivia D'Livio).

So the decision was made.

And when I saw it today on that envelope, a whole range of emotions washed over me.

Bizarreness, excitement, feeling incredibly old, happiness, confusion.

And pride. Yep, while I will most definitely be using the lovely Ms most of the time, I can clearly say, this once... very proud to be his Mrs.