The Identity load.

misshawaiiantropic - 14 Nov 18

It is not everyone who would buy their first house in an area they don’t know, get married, have a baby and change career in the space of a year and a half but I did. Not by design, you understand, because who would actually sign up for such seismic life tremors all in the one go? This was all coincidence, well mostly. The marriage was the only planned bit. The wedding was booked but the move for my husband’s job and the pregnancy were all coincidence. The area we moved to was my husband’s hometown. He was returning to a comforting sense of familiarity, I was starting somewhere new. We were due to be married in September, we bought the house in April. I changed jobs in May (to a less progressive post) and discovered I was pregnant in the July. By August I was painting the ceilings with vigour, and a fairly noticeable bump.

September came and went as did our beautiful, albeit teetotal, wedding day. My body was already different and I was suddenly wedged between two names. My name and this new name that circled with marriage certificate. I had wanted to create a new name for us, a la Dawn O’Porter; my significant other was not keen. As hospital and midwife appointments racked up it was becoming confusing. Then the decision was made for me when I was rushed to hospital with expected early labour. The husband had to register me on arrival and so I became officially Mrs W. I was huge and it was one more thing not to think about. Therefore on I trundled with the new name. Miss M became Mrs W.

After the baby came, I was too shell-shocked to think about it. The birth had been interesting; my son literally bursting into the world. My body was completely different, I couldn’t walk without dribbling (not from my mouth) and my skin and hair were bereft of moisture. On top of all of this I had this new name. This new registry tag that I sometimes forgot to answer to. My old identity didn’t exist any more. All the offical paper pariphinalia of life was for this new woman called Mrs W.

Mrs W had a son. Mrs W had a dog and mortgage. Mrs W was taking a career break to look after her baby. Mrs W drove an SUV. Mrs W weighed much more than she ought. Mrs W would go to the gym and walk on the treadmill and listen to indie classics remembering when she used to be Miss M and throw herself around to Iggy Pop in sweaty clubs.

This life is pretty much exactly as I wanted. But my identity, my sense of place, space and self are all completely upended. I never imagined just how hard it would be to reconcile all these pieces, fragements of a life before, after and in between. To my embarressment I never even considered the impact of these choices in any depth, feminist principles be damed.

Although I would never change it, I do wonder how other women feel and how they mentally manage the identity load. I also wonder if they too, like me, on their worst days, feel completely jealous of their unsuspecting spouse who appears to have experienced no change at all. Or maybe that is just poor Mr W who just wanted to call me Mrs.

misshawaiiantropic

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