It took my friends a day to call me a different name. It took my parents four years.
When I was contemplating changing my name, I knew the path would be anything but easy. Would I be able to handle people finding out that I had an old name? Would the hassle of changing that name in system after system eat me alive? Would any of this be worth it?
But after five years of living my truth, of going by my real name, I don’t have any regrets. I don’t even regret not changing my name sooner. It was a journey I started right at the perfect time: when I was ready. After all, it was anything but easy.
Before you even decide to change your name, there’s a stage of denial. “No, I can bear this. I’m fine with my name.” No one wants to make their life harder. But at some point, you will look at your old name, remember how it used to ring like a bell, “Me! Me! This is me!” and give it a whirl one last time, only to hear that it has the resonance of a rock.
Once you change your name, you change yourself. Like a doctor announcing a time of death, you formally declare that you are no longer who you used to be. The death of that old name is the death of your old self. You are reborn, living in the body, in the clothes, in the life of someone once before. And slowly, you begin to fill that space with new things, with new people, with new experiences reminiscent of who you truly are.
Some people look at their old self and wince. Some people look with pity. Some people look with love and sorrow, and some people look with hate. But either way, they are that old self for a reason.
When it came time to correcting my extended family and all the associated “aunties” and “uncles”, they would laugh, maybe say sorry, but always say, verbatim: “I’ve just called you that for so long.”
When I visit the doctor’s office, everyone there smiles and unknowingly calls me my old name, as it’s still on my insurance card and everything. They look at me in the eyes, smiling, trying their best to connect with me, and I’m just sitting there, thinking, “Will I make this appointment forty-five minutes longer by asking to put a different name in their system?”
When I reconnect with old friends I haven’t spoken to for so long, I see their face light up, and they cheerfully call out to me with my old name. Then I inform them otherwise, and the air turns awkward, almost tense. I’m reminding them of how much we’ve drifted apart, so flippantly pointing it out. “I’ve changed my name. That’s how long you haven’t spoken to me.”
Not everyone knows that you’re not supposed to take it personally when someone corrects you on their pronouns or their name. Taking it personally seems to be the default reaction. I must give every update and correction with a mountain of reassurance, or else, it will sound like I’m being obnoxious or rude. It’s ridiculous. I mean, yes, change is never easy, but why are so many people acting as if this change is harder on them than it is on me? I’m the one who had to change my name, not you. In a moment where I am advocating for myself, must I take care of you, too?
Asking to be called by my real name feels like an inconvenience I am vainly imposing on someone else. Hence why I didn’t publicly come out until I got to college—no one even knew me to begin with. But I didn’t want to be an inconvenience; I only wanted to be myself. Does that make me an inconvenience then?
Five years down the line, I think I have an answer to that dreadful question.
It won’t matter whether I’m an inconvenience or not. It doesn’t even matter how much of an inconvenience it will be to change my name. What matters is that I live as my true self, no matter how different that really is from how I used to be. Of course, taking on such a radical change is no walk in the park. But it’s either that or living a lie, and that will feel way worse.
There’s no joy like changing your Instagram username, using a new email with your real name on it, or seeing it printed out on your student ID card. After so long, your name rings like a bell again, cheering, “Me! Me! This is me!”
So, yes, I am an inconvenience. Everyone is. That’s just the price of being human—of being alive. To be alive is to change. And Luunivaa is such a pretty name anyways.