What's in a name?

Sweet Juliet, idealistic and in love. A woman not so unlike myself, trying to transcend the time and place to preserve an innocence and naivete to the love she feels in her heart.

Juliet: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet."

Ah, but so much of our identity is wrapped up in our names. If we don't like the formal tone of our first name, we develop nicknames of our choosing to better reflect our personalities. Our last names place us with our tribe - our people.

Now, the time in my life I have dreamed of has come. The time for me to join another tribe and with it comes a new name. I am the youngest daughter of a man with no sons - the last one to abandon my family name. My mother, father, and grandmother are the only ones who remain.

I never realized how difficult it is to make this transition. Emotionally, I'm ready. THRILLED to be part of this new family. But logistically, the name change process is a mess - I never knew!

Three weeks of waiting for the marriage license to come. It's finally here, so now:
- I have to go to the Social Security Office and register my name change.
- Then I have to make an appointment with Human Resources to change my health and life insurance information
- The IT department then needs to set up an automated response to my old email address to notify and forward it to my new email address
- I have to take or mail my marriage license to: the bank, my credit card companies, my 401K, my rental insurance company, and my savings bank.
- I also have to apply for a new driver's license, a new passport, new checks, and a new work ID badge.

But even with all of that, this rose still smells as sweet.