Does a new name mean a new identity?
So the title of today's post is actually a question;
Does a new name mean a new identity?
The reason for this question is because I recently got married and my new ID's have come in with my married name on them.
Placing my current ID next to my new one I can't help but see little to no similarities between the two women before me.
My Newfoundland ID not only holding my now maiden name but also a picture of, well it honestly looks like a mug shot. Looking at it I remember the day I got this picture taken, it was the weekend prior to my 19th birthday which in Newfoundland was a big deal because I was about to be a 'legal' adult and be able to buy liquor, cigarettes, have a credit card..etc all the 'fun stuff' that came with being an 'adult' or what my mind thought five years ago meant being an adult, boy was she in for a rude awakening.
She had been cranky because the clerk refused to not put the 'idiot strip' (eighteen year old me's wording for the strip that says 'not 19 until ----' on it) and the fact her bangs weren't having the best day... oh yes those bangs that had become a thing during a drunken night in her dorm room thinking 'I need a change' declaring it loud and proud before taking a pair of dollar store scissors to her hair and cutting the shoulder length side bangs that she had spent years growing out off. Now to be perfectly honest in her defense those bangs did look good for a while, straight across bangs during winter often look gorgeous if done right and everyone has had that moment where they wanted to become someone else or change something in hopes that it would spark some kind of positive change in their lives. I know 100% I am guilty of this on many occasions.
At this point I was unemployed, having recently quit my pizza parlor job that I hated, was seeing a guy on and off that I had been flirting with all summer as a way to get away from the fact my life was a literal hot mess, he was a distraction from the fact that I had been suspended from university that spring which was a wound my ego wouldn't heal from until a year after this photo was taken when I got back into school. The girl in the picture is a very real depiction of me after a series of bad decisions.
I like to think that this part of my life was my lowest, going from job to job, kicked out of university, doing what it took to survive living in my hometown once again, I had lived away in another province for eight months and at that point I assumed that gave me some kind of superiority over everyone else... yes I had gone to university... but really I had been kicked out, my grades had been horrible that semester and in all honestly looking back now I shouldn't have had the chip on my shoulder because of it because all the pain I was in at that point was self caused. But I am long past the self blame game for that year of my life because even though I did land in that low I did meet redemption, I did get back into school and after years of hard work my GPA has finally recovered from my first year failures and I am a decimal away from a 3.0 GPA.
Overall looking at the picture to my left I just see a really lost girl, someone who had lost what she valued most but at the same time she didn't truly know it's value yet. At this point she was angry at the world for failing her instead of coming to terms with the fact she herself was responsible for her own self destruction.
Then I look to the picture on my right.
This is probably one of the best ID photos I've ever seen (not saying this because this is my ID at all, ask my wife she agrees, not because she's my wife either) it doesn't look like a mug shot, it just looks like one of those pictures you can't smile for... the guy at the DMV actually asked me NOT to smile for this but if you look closely enough you can see that I was half smirking. This photo was going to be my new identity, it was the start of a new chapter... this ID, this really crappy signature (I seriously need practice with it going from one name to another as your legal signature is hard,, I spent years working on my own brand of chicken scratch for my maiden name.. now how long will it take for this one to become half not ugly.... not really worrying about it being legible nobody has ever been able to read my hand writing why start trying now?)
The girl in this picture looks grown, an even hair part, no bangs in sight as it has been years since I had them now. No longer sporting the jet black hair that had been her comfort color, for some reason at eighteen the color black was comforting after many attempts and failures at different colored hair. Last fall I went to my hair stylist and sat in her chair giving her my blessing to do whatever she thought would look good needing one of those changes I seem to love, four hours, two-almost three bleach applications, two dye jobs and a hair mask to make sure I had some hair left after all of this later I emerged from the chair a few pounds lighter from having my hair thinned and sporting a nice auburn do. I felt lighter mentally and emotionally having shed the storm cloud of black hair I'd never return to.
Having also given up on the whole concept of straightening my hair daily (I mean come on, some people have the energy and time for that... I'm not one anymore especially with how thick my hair really is) so thank the gods I was blessed with naturally wavy hair that just looks like I do it like this,, nope I just let it down out of the towel and if I really wanna put effort in, put some curling spray in and sprunch it a bit.
Outside of the obvious differences; like the fact the ID is from a province nearly 3000 miles standing between the towns on the ID's, the fact that one is a photo ID and the other is a learners permit (yes a little victory on my part at nearly 23 I finally got my learners).
The major difference I see between the two is the story behind/between them.
The girl on the right has seen most of Canada,
Nobody in life ever knows where the roads will take them, all we truly ever know is how to hold on to the ones we love on this wild ride.
That's all for me.
Love and Light.
VKC
Does a new name mean a new identity?
The reason for this question is because I recently got married and my new ID's have come in with my married name on them.
Placing my current ID next to my new one I can't help but see little to no similarities between the two women before me.
My Newfoundland ID not only holding my now maiden name but also a picture of, well it honestly looks like a mug shot. Looking at it I remember the day I got this picture taken, it was the weekend prior to my 19th birthday which in Newfoundland was a big deal because I was about to be a 'legal' adult and be able to buy liquor, cigarettes, have a credit card..etc all the 'fun stuff' that came with being an 'adult' or what my mind thought five years ago meant being an adult, boy was she in for a rude awakening.
She had been cranky because the clerk refused to not put the 'idiot strip' (eighteen year old me's wording for the strip that says 'not 19 until ----' on it) and the fact her bangs weren't having the best day... oh yes those bangs that had become a thing during a drunken night in her dorm room thinking 'I need a change' declaring it loud and proud before taking a pair of dollar store scissors to her hair and cutting the shoulder length side bangs that she had spent years growing out off. Now to be perfectly honest in her defense those bangs did look good for a while, straight across bangs during winter often look gorgeous if done right and everyone has had that moment where they wanted to become someone else or change something in hopes that it would spark some kind of positive change in their lives. I know 100% I am guilty of this on many occasions.
At this point I was unemployed, having recently quit my pizza parlor job that I hated, was seeing a guy on and off that I had been flirting with all summer as a way to get away from the fact my life was a literal hot mess, he was a distraction from the fact that I had been suspended from university that spring which was a wound my ego wouldn't heal from until a year after this photo was taken when I got back into school. The girl in the picture is a very real depiction of me after a series of bad decisions.
I like to think that this part of my life was my lowest, going from job to job, kicked out of university, doing what it took to survive living in my hometown once again, I had lived away in another province for eight months and at that point I assumed that gave me some kind of superiority over everyone else... yes I had gone to university... but really I had been kicked out, my grades had been horrible that semester and in all honestly looking back now I shouldn't have had the chip on my shoulder because of it because all the pain I was in at that point was self caused. But I am long past the self blame game for that year of my life because even though I did land in that low I did meet redemption, I did get back into school and after years of hard work my GPA has finally recovered from my first year failures and I am a decimal away from a 3.0 GPA.
Overall looking at the picture to my left I just see a really lost girl, someone who had lost what she valued most but at the same time she didn't truly know it's value yet. At this point she was angry at the world for failing her instead of coming to terms with the fact she herself was responsible for her own self destruction.
Then I look to the picture on my right.
This is probably one of the best ID photos I've ever seen (not saying this because this is my ID at all, ask my wife she agrees, not because she's my wife either) it doesn't look like a mug shot, it just looks like one of those pictures you can't smile for... the guy at the DMV actually asked me NOT to smile for this but if you look closely enough you can see that I was half smirking. This photo was going to be my new identity, it was the start of a new chapter... this ID, this really crappy signature (I seriously need practice with it going from one name to another as your legal signature is hard,, I spent years working on my own brand of chicken scratch for my maiden name.. now how long will it take for this one to become half not ugly.... not really worrying about it being legible nobody has ever been able to read my hand writing why start trying now?)
The girl in this picture looks grown, an even hair part, no bangs in sight as it has been years since I had them now. No longer sporting the jet black hair that had been her comfort color, for some reason at eighteen the color black was comforting after many attempts and failures at different colored hair. Last fall I went to my hair stylist and sat in her chair giving her my blessing to do whatever she thought would look good needing one of those changes I seem to love, four hours, two-almost three bleach applications, two dye jobs and a hair mask to make sure I had some hair left after all of this later I emerged from the chair a few pounds lighter from having my hair thinned and sporting a nice auburn do. I felt lighter mentally and emotionally having shed the storm cloud of black hair I'd never return to.
Having also given up on the whole concept of straightening my hair daily (I mean come on, some people have the energy and time for that... I'm not one anymore especially with how thick my hair really is) so thank the gods I was blessed with naturally wavy hair that just looks like I do it like this,, nope I just let it down out of the towel and if I really wanna put effort in, put some curling spray in and sprunch it a bit.
Outside of the obvious differences; like the fact the ID is from a province nearly 3000 miles standing between the towns on the ID's, the fact that one is a photo ID and the other is a learners permit (yes a little victory on my part at nearly 23 I finally got my learners).
The major difference I see between the two is the story behind/between them.
The girl on the right has seen most of Canada,
- has spent the last several years rebuilding her life from that tragic year when she got suspended from school
- having learned that education might be considered a 'right' but in all it's entirety it is a privilege more than anything
- she has learned that everything you have in life you have to earn it
- that friends come and go but the ones that matter will stay with you no matter where in this world you end up in be it Manitoba or Japan
- that the goofy kid in panda bear shirts in your English class and the 'scary looking badass' can actually become best friends to the point you both learn things from each other like how to stand on your own but also know you'll never have to because you've got one another's backs
- that the blonde type A girl from the lounge that you secretly feared because she was hard core about everything in her life could actually be your ride or die in life because you both are stubborn and come hell or high water nothing will break either of you to the point you've become one another's rocks
- that self acceptance isn't a bad thing but the most freeing thing in this damned world because once you learn to accept yourself and conclude that if the rest of the world doesn't like it then tough it literally makes your life so much easier and the air becomes easier to breathe in that moment
- that taking a class to piss your childhood best friend off can truly lead to a life changing career changer (I took Criminology to mess with mine and now I am in it for the long haul, while he is now becoming a philosophy professor, well trying to become one having just finished his Master's Degree.)
- that redemption does come at a cost even if it means losing friends or changing parts of who you are if you want it bad enough nothing will stop you--- ever
- that mistakes in life are okay-- so long as you NEVER let them hold you hostage forever-- by this I mean accept the past as it is because you can't change it the only thing you CAN do is learn from it and move forward- the second you start doing that life won't feel as hard and you'll be free of your own guilt
- that figuring out who you are isn't something you can actually rush- it takes years- some people never really figure it out and that's okay
- that blindly signing a lease for an apartment can actually end well if you have the right landlord (I was lucky, she ended up becoming a great friend)
- that first apartments are actually more exciting than they should be (everything is so new and amazing)
- that taking a chance on a girl from a dating site could actually lead to that happily ever after that story books told you about as a kid
- that it was possible to truly find a love that you would cross a country for, I know I did as in December I left Fredericton and in January moved to Manitoba to be with the woman I now call my wife after a roller coaster ride we made it into our own home, who knows how long we'll be living in this one, what matters is that we are here together
- what's even more exciting in a very full circle matter is that if you stay there until the end of your time in that city you can literally look at all the memories you had there--- this fact is beyond true because when I was leaving Fredericton I literally touched the walls of my apartment and remembered the good, bad and ugly moments had in that place and couldn't believe how far I had come since I had moved there.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was that taking chances is okay because without them we'd never truly know what's out there.
At nineteen I didn't know where my life was going, I thought I'd just go back to school and eventually finish my English degree and become an ESL teacher, never truly finding someone to spend my life with, only stamps for my passport and leading a life on the road.
At twenty three I am more than certain where my life is going; it's been four years since then and what I do know is that it's okay to make mistakes because they help you find your way. I know that I want to spend my life helping people and working in the field of Criminology, that my home is where my wife is, that I won't be spending my life alone because I have found what I didn't even know I was looking for a year ago; the woman who literally holds the key to my heart and world, someone who I know I am going to spend my life with because she is my other half and I'm hers.
My name changing doesn't mean I have changed personalities, it means simply that I have grown into the person I am meant to be and am continually doing so.
Vanessa M was a girl who was meant to become Vanessa L.
Just as everyone who grows up becomes who they are meant to be, I am still that girl who moved to a random province at 17 in an attempt to find herself, I'm just older now and I'd like to think wiser-- okay not too much wiser but I'd like to think a little bit?
A new identity is only obtained if you have changed everything about yourself, it is normal to not recognize yourself when you look back at old pictures in the sense that you've changed out of that person and into a new one.
In my case the girl on the left was someone I didn't ever like being, at that time I was a bratty teenager who had no idea what she wanted in her life, who hadn't fully accepted herself yet.
But the girl on the right has come full circle, she has accepted who she is meant to be and has some direction in where she wants to go.
Life works in mysterious ways, my new name to me means a new chapter and fresh start in the sense that who I was before I met my wife was just the beginning of who I am going to become. The girl on the left was me at the starting point of my adult life while the girl on the right is the woman I've become after years of ups, downs and inbetweens.
This is who I have become and I'm sure in four years I'll be someone new once more, life isn't about crossing a finish line or being this or that.
No.
Life is about continually learning who you are and who you're meant to be, nobody is ever the same person for too long because as people we are continually growing and becoming who we are going to be for any length of time.
I feel like this all comes back to a quote I was reminded of during my wedding when my mother brought my year book from my senior year of high school, my quote that still stands in my mind as one of the truest principles in my life is;
My goal isn't to become the best, it is to become someone I am not ashamed to be.At the end of my life, when that day comes I want to be able to look back and know that I did just that. Yes there were times that I feel as if I truly was a monster, but the fact I was able to take that person and transform her into a caring person who would fight life and limb for the people she loves, that I want to spend my life helping others... that my friends is why we continually strive to becoming the people we are meant to be.
Nobody in life ever knows where the roads will take them, all we truly ever know is how to hold on to the ones we love on this wild ride.
That's all for me.
Love and Light.
VKC
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