Call it what you will

Have I told you lately how much I love my name?

I don't feel even slightly vain for saying that. My name, though it bears much of my identity, has nothing to do with any of my effort or creativity. My name is purely a gift. And I've only truly begun to love it since I got married.

There's something about "Stephanie Starks." It has a ring to it. It rolls off of the tongue. I like it.

I was talking to a friend of mine and used her last name in reference to her household. The "Smith" household, I'll say for sake of example. And she looked at me in kind of a blank, confused way. I laughed it off and explained, "You know, because it's your house so it's your household."

But then she told me how since her parents divorced that name has meant nothing to her. She wouldn't recognize a household with her last name on it--it no longer exists.

I got to feel for a second how isolating that would be. Sure it has a flair of freedom and independence. But I like knowing that I have a household. That Rory and I, though without children, are a family, a household. A unit. A team.

My maiden name was all well and good. Stephanie Cary is just as nice--though it does seem to lack the tv anchor-person sing-songy tone that Stephanie Starks carries. And I love my family and where I came from.

But when I say Stephanie Starks or sign it on the back of checks, I get the distinct feeling that I am in the presence of something new with the power to create something bigger. I am on the verge of building a family, a legacy all my own. Well, all mine and Rory's, but you know what I mean. We are a family already, I am learning. But it's very powerful to be so bonded and united as to share a name and build a household from it.

Marriage is horrible. Ugly and awful and cruel and revealing and strengthening and true and sanctifying. (See all previous blogs.) But uniting and humbling and bonding and creating, and, well, I like that part. And I am glad it's with my new name--Starks.

So this new household we've made/are making will be nothing like anything before. It's all our own. And we get to make it whatever we like.

We may not have chosen our name or created our name but it's ours all the same. And it's nice to share something that sounds so pretty to the ear.

Thanks, Ror.