Monday, December 29, 2008

Name Changing... Whoo Hoo!!!

I’ll write about X-mas in my next post (I know, this will be the second time I’ve said that but I want to put up pictures and just haven’t downloaded them to my computer yet.)

For now, I’m going to rant about something that’s been on my mind for a while now. For anybody that may not have read my mini-rant on twitter earlier, I’m finally changing my legal name to my married one. I will still go by Kat Rocha professionally, but legally I am now Kat Finney. Just in time for new years, huh.  Feels good to be doing this actually… ok, getting sappy here but I’m starting to cry just thinking about it.

Why didn’t I do this before… well, honestly, there were two main reasons why.

The first is most of my life I was told that changing your name was “oppressive” and “loosing your independence” etc. “If you take on your husband’s name, you are no longer an individual.” Ack. Bull shit I know (now at least) but that’s what I was taught. There was a lot of bull shit being taught to kids in the 90’s and I was dumb enough to believe a lot of it. Feminism was a great thing but modern day feminists got a LOT of things wrong and I’m going down that hard road of realizing just how much of it is bull.

“But Kat,” some would say, “you don’t have to change your name fully, just use a hyphen. Lots of women do that.” Well, I’d seen women hyphenate their names before (some I’m even related to) and that always seemed very wishy-washy. Hyphenating means that you can’t make up your mind to change or not. Look, either you change your name or you don’t. Doing both just looks stupid and makes you seem indecisive.

The second (which, in all honesty should be the first reason but for editorial reasons I’m listing it second) is too fucked up to voice online. I started to write about it, realized how horrible and monstrous it really was and decided it was best left between me and my therapist.  I will say that divorced parents left me with some really strange views on marriage… views I’m not proud of. And name changing is one of them.

Me, I only ever wanted to get married once. I was going to find the perfect man and get married and live happily ever after. And you know what, Josh is most definitely that perfect man  And Damn It! I’m Josh Finny’s wife! I’m proud of it, so why shouldn’t I take his name?! There is absolutely nothing wrong with it… and it honestly does feel good to call myself Mrs. Finny.

And, on a side note, I have felt more welcome with his family than I have ever with mine. I love my family… but they are “relatives.” where I actually feel like part of a… um… closest word I can find is “clan” with the Finnys, so it just feels right to legally take on the name.

Ok. I think I’m done with that rant now.

Next Time on Now Loading…
See the Pimp Nutcracker in all is bling and glory!
See the Tiki Gundam! :oooga chaka oooga chaka:
Gaze into the majesty that is Kat’s New Computer! “oooooooh, aaaaaaaah”And all the fun that was had on Christmas Eve at the in-laws house.

Will have that up by New Years. 

-Kat




3 comments:

Lord Shaper said...

Congrats on the name change hehehe

Mogs never changed her name when we got married but that was due to her changing her name by Deedpoll about 6 months before hand and she didn't want to change what she has already picked out.

She did change from Ms to Mrs tho hehehe

Kat said...

yeah. I'm very happy. Wish I could go today and make it official but there's no point w/ the new year coming up. It's a gov. agency and nobody wants to be working this week. :)
-Kat

Anonymous said...

Firstly to correct an error. You have said you found the perfect man but unless thats me, Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit or Bruce Campbell then at best you are with a second place. But glad you are happy with what you got ;)

The name thing is a bit weird. Iz took on my name when we got married and it was never something that even came up in discussion. I didnt even think about it to be honest and she said for her it was a no brainer.... or maybe she was talking about me. Her sister however has double barrelled her name to keep both and now her kids have that as well. Not that keen on that, but only coz double barreled names alway sound a bit pretentious to me.
Have thought I should get her name tattood on though as a kind of "See? I'm happy to think I'll be part of you forever as well"
Or I could get a Harley Quinn. Not sure