The Name Game

What's in a name?

So, so much. Our names are saturated with history, soaked with stories and steeped in all kinds of identity. They are bestowed upon us at birth and they traipse alongside us for the rest of our days, sometimes staying absolutely the same, sometimes morphing into something kinda/sorta the same and other times, becoming something completely different (Monty Python reference intended).

I hated my last name as a kid. Absolutely hated it. My full name, back then, was Jennifer Ball and trust me, I've heard every "clever" nickname possible. I was Bouncy Ball, Ball-head, Jenny Ballsalot, Ballface, Jenny Nut, etc. I learned to live with it, obviously, and even learned to make fun of it myself (still kinda wishing my old timey grade-school friend Ann Sachs and I had married and hyphenated our last names)(not too late, my friend, LOL).

But I remember thinking how awesome it was going to be, to get married and find out what life was like without a cringey surname. Wow, can you imagine making reservations and saying uh yeah that's a party of five, at seven, last name Sloane. Or being able to say, it's Ford, like the car instead of yes, that's Ball like football or basketball. Ball.

Boys and girls, you know what happened. I got married and took his last name and shed that Ball like a snake sheds its skin. I reveled in the glory of a name that couldn't possibly be made fun of. It couldn't in any way shape or form be compared to a part, any part, of the human body.

It was good.

Until the person who let me take his name decided to give it to another.

Even then, I kept it. IT WAS MINE FIRST. 

It was a hill I was prepared to die on, that last name. It mattered to me, quite a bit, at first. I wanted to match my kids. I wanted to cling to the identity that was mine, that I had worn for so long. It sounded cute, too, such a nice ring to it, as opposed to Jenny Ball, which just sort of fell out my mouth and wobbled in the air like a Weeble.

I will admit that part of my desire to stay with that last name was like my sweet old dog peeing on every utility pole on our walks. THIS IS MINE. CAN YOU SMELL ME HERE, SUCKAS? I WAS HERE. When the new wife, my replacement, began brandishing the same name, like it was some shiny badge of honor, it made me cling to it all the more. Even when I was handed her plastic-wrapped dry-cleaning by mistake, I hung on.

Life went on. The kids got older and aged out of the time of school directories and yearbooks and it no longer seemed as important to be able to identify the members of our little clan based on half of our names.

I gradually, hesitatingly, pulled out the old last name and tried it on for size.

It became my writing name when I discovered that the internet has this search function and people could find out who I was, and therefore, who the other people in my life were. For the sake of my children's privacy and for the avoidance of making the ex and his harpy mad, I became Jennifer Ball again.

At work and on some social media platforms and to my friends, though, I was still the Other Jenny. It was a somewhat harmonious existence.

Until I went to get my drivers license renewed.

Minnesota has a new ID system kicking in, one that requires approximately 906 pieces of identification when you renew. I carefully downloaded and printed and accumulated the information they requested. Passport, old license, bank account statements, W2s, paychecks, the blood of my firstborn, fingernail trimmings and strands of hair with root-bulbs attached.

The woman at the DMV took my pile of Jenny-ness and began loading it all into her magic computer. It was all going well! Fast, even, by DMV standards. Until her fingers stopped clicking keys and she said, "Hmm. That's weird."

There are a thousand times in your life you don't want to hear "Hmm. That's weird." Like during a gyno exam or in bed with a new lover or while getting your oil changed. "Hmm. That's weird" is also something you don't want to hear at the DMV.

"It says here that this social security number doesn't match with your name." She said this to me as she backspaced and tried it again. Nope.

Here's the deal, you guys: apparently I never got around to changing my last name on my social security number. According to our government, I was still, and always had been, Jennifer Ball. I guess I should have figured it out. All these years of doing my taxes, I used my old last name. We did that when I was married, too, and yes I realize that most people would have thought to themselves at some point yeah I need to figure this out but I'll tell ya what, in my world if it ain't broke YOU DO NOT FIX IT. So it was never addressed.

The government had absolutely zero trouble taking checks from New Jenny to pay Old Jenny's tax bills, you know? Also my bank never batted an eye when someone named Jennifer Ball deposited a check into that other Jennifer's account. It was all copacetic.

Until Minnesota had to get all fancy with their IDs. The woman at the DMV was great, she tried different approaches, she even had me go print off one more new and exciting document that had not only my old name on it, but the new one too. None of it worked.

So, it would appear that I need to go completely Ball again. It's either that, or go to the Social Security Office and bring another stack of papers to another person with another magic computer in front of them. Have you ever sat in a Social Security Office? I have. And I'm never doing that again, if I can help it.

It's easier to just get everything back to matching what the Social Security number says. Hence, the name change at work. And on my bank account. And alllll my other accounts. It's tedious but it sure beats driving downtown, paying for parking and giving up a personal day from work to sit in a loud and crowded waiting area for hours.

It it was pretty funny when I told our veterinarian that the dog's name is now Walter Ball. He's not psyched about it.

One thing I've discovered, on this road back to my roots, is that I don't hate my last name anymore. I kind of love it. It's me. It's short and easy to spell and it doesn't bear the stains of a lousy marriage to a lousy man. It's mine now.

It's mine, again.