sunken garden

I’ve recently received my permanent resident card and in this card I’m using my married name. Over the week, I’ve been to Social Security and Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for name change. The whole process was methodical. While it’s only logical to have one name in all my primary identification cards, I’m suddenly struck at the feeling that I have somehow lost a part of myself. It’s just a strange feeling. I’ve been married for more than half a year and I guess, I should have been ready for this but I realized that it’s not just the name change that I was unprepared for.

Married life is challenging and interesting. Because I started rather early and very few of my friends are married like me, I found myself aching to have someone whom I can share my thoughts and experiences with about my married life. I can talk to my husband about these stuff but it’s just different to talk about some things with someone not involve in the marital relationship. It gives you (perhaps) a different perspective and sometimes the contrast and comparisons in relationships just help you understand or appreciate your relationship better. But this not really the subject in discussion.

I’ve had to deal with the US government a few times already and I must say that despite the sour disposition of some “civil” servants, it’s efficiency is a notch much higher than my home country, Philippines. I remember the web of rules and the pile of paper that I needed to go through for a minor name correction in my birth certificate. Not to mention the endless number of times that you need to fall in line and follow-up your case at the National Statistics Office. In simple terms, it’s a nightmare. I had to go through it twice for myself and my daughter. Ugh. Just thinking about it brings back the feeling of impatience, frustration and then resignation that things are just the way they are — snail-pace slow, inefficient, red-tape that is miles in length and miserable “civil” servants who are not to happy with their jobs.

There was some confusion about which my middle name is. In the Philippines, the middle name is maiden name. Whereas here, the “second” name is the middle name. I have two names as my “first name” and managed to retain my maiden name as middle name thus resulting to four names altogether! But then, I just had to keep my Filipino name intact otherwise I might need to go through the lengthy process of reconciling my Philippine and US identities.