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4/9/19

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.






4/4/19

Haunted (by) Houses




**This was a post I made in a private group. The feedback was notable so I thought I'd put it out here, you know, because it's important to know that we aren't alone in this messy life. For those who are new to this particularly cuckoo corner of the internet, here's a synopsis for ya: husband/father walked out and divorce was final in 2006. Funny thing, though, is it didn't really end in 2006. He left me with four kids, which was tough, but he also left me with a mountain of debt. Our little house, which was worth less than $100k, had been used to take out a few loans (home equity, second mortgage,golden parachute for him when he retired from our marriage, blah blah). I "got" the house in the divorce because I thought that was all I needed. The loans on the house exceeded $300k. I'd been a stay at home mom for the entirety of the marriage and raised the kids while he worked his way up the ol' corporate ladder. At the time he bolted, he was making decent money and I was awarded generous child support and spousal maintenance, which I had planned on using to pay off debts, finish school and get back to living life. He stopped all payments about a year into it. Cold turkey, all I got was a one-sentence email saying something like "i'm experiencing some difficulties so payments may be slow or stop completely." Turns out the difficulties were deciding which Audi to buy and also getting his pool fixed 😂 Anyway. He found the money for an attorney and somehow managed to get his child support obligation reduced to zero. I found a pro-bono attorney and for almost 6 years tried to get him to help take care of his kids. By the time "justice" was served (justice, it turns out, comes to about 19 cents on the dollar of what he owed), two of the kids were 18 or over, I'd lost our little house, had to file bankruptcy and my credit was shattered. No. Not shattered. It was like Thanos got a hold of it and *poof* it was ashes. Since then I have done what I could to keep things normal for the kids. I work full-time, was there 100% for my kids and now all four have graduated from high school and are either in college or working. Three of them live at home (two in college full-time) because they are trying to save money. They help out as much as they can. I pay almost $2k a month in rent, have paid in full and on time every month for 9 years. That's about as good a price you'll get here in Minneapolis for a rental house in a city that's close to busing, schools and our places of work (for real, you find a three bedroom house or townhome or apt in a first/second ring suburb of Minneapolis for less than $1500 a month that isn't made of cardboard and get back to me) . I'm 52. I'm a good mom, I think I'm a somewhat decent person and I represent a large swath of the United States population: those who are productive citizens, gainfully employed, living paycheck-to-paycheck. Every time I get a little bit tucked away into savings there is something that needs to be taken care of: one of our ancient cars breaks down, a tooth cracks, someone's tuition is due, we need heat in the winter (lol), etc. I am absolutely, 100% blessed to actually have some bootstraps to pull, but my arms are tired and on the day I saw this house and then came home and wrote this post, I was ragey and pms-ing and dammit I just needed to vent. ***EDIT*** since then, the amazing people in my group have rallied and donated and offered credit counseling help and names of realtors and just straight up loved and cheered and commiserated.I will do this, I swear on all that is good and holy- I will get a house and I will plant those gd lilacs. **

Warning: contains swears, angst, some wailing and minor gnashing of teeth

Ughhh you guys. I want to buy this house but there’s no way in hell I would qualify for any sort of loan because that mother effing bankruptcy and foreclosure are still showing up.

This is what I want to tell people who insist that I’m bitter. Who tell me to get over it, who shake their heads and say “I can’t believe you still think about this”. Who look at my ex, in his million dollar house, livin’ the dream and then at me, livin’ the nightmare of financial insecurity and terror over things like “where will I live when our sweet landlord gets smart and decides to sell?” and see nothing unfair or unjust.

“Jenny, he’s moved on. Why can’t you?”

Because every.single.day there is a reminder. Some days I’m SO GOOD at ignoring them. I line up my blessings and kiss them on the forehead as I count them. I laugh and curl up with the good fortune I do have and the reminders slink away.

But the houses. Shit. The houses, they won’t be ignored (I wonder if they sound like Glen Close ðŸ˜‚😂). They are structures built of possibilities and dreams. They are carnies calling out to me as I try my hardest to just keep walking, eyes focused on the sidewalk, the sky, anything but these homes. “Step right up! Feast your eyes on this little beaut! Too bad you can’t qualify for a gd thing, Jenny! This coulda been yours if only you’d made some better life choices! If only you’d ignored that tall asshole singing along to REM at the bar that night!” (it was The End of the World As We Know It, hahaha)(cry)

I lost the home my dad bought and remodeled with his own two hands thanks to my ex husband’s fuckery. A home that welcomed our new babies, that was framed with plants and trees we put into the ground with love, that kept us safe and warm through seasons of cold and rain. A home I had planned on living in for the rest of my life. Gone, because some dude couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

People comfort me and say “aye you don’t want to own a home anyway, too much work and responsibility” but dammit I want that work and that responsibility. I really do. I want grass that’s mine and walls I can paint whatever color I want and a yard that is crying out for some lilacs and a little screened in porch. I want to stand outside at night, not in a creepy stalker way but you know, after hauling the garbage to the curb or something, and look in the windows and see glowing lights in a cozy living room that belongs to ME.

I want it and it’s not going to happen no matter how hard I try. And I know the day will come when my dog and I traipse past this one and the sign in the front yard will say “SOLD” and one more little sprig of excitement and hope will be crushed.

We’ve walked by so many of these houses and each time I’ve thought “augh I should just ask, I should just try” and then I remember that I have the credit of a ghost. A ghost who was so spectacularly screwed over that my credit, like my sense of self and the hope of ever truly, I mean- wholly-recovering, is irretrievably broken.

It’s not even that great, this house. That’s what I’m telling myself.


And I keep walking.