This is a REALLY big dill!

Every woman going through divorce who has changed her name upon marrying faces the decision of whether or not and when to change it back to her birth name. As I prayed about this during my divorce, I still had a son who was a minor. I knew his father would never consider letting me change my son’s name as well and I decided to keep my married name for the time being. I think part of me always knew, just as I knew that I wanted to get back to Minnesota, that I wanted my birth name back. 

Now it’s official! During a zoom hearing in Dakota county, a judge formally proclaimed, “Henceforth, you shall be known everywhere as Marian Kay Rukavina.” His voice boomed as tears welled up in my eyes.

You can go home again - home to yourself - and home, closer to a family and friends who formed you and love you. 

I am especially grateful for one friend I knew in my earliest years that I have reconnected with who prompted the timing of this by actually calling me by my birth name - yelling to me from the basement of my new home as he poked around my lower level kitchenette, “Hey, Rukavina, come check this out!” I loved how surprised I was. I loved how it sounded. I loved how I felt – being called by my birth name – after not hearing it for over thirty years! I knew then and there that I wanted that feeling back on the regular. 

I think too about a friend whose experiences paralleled mine in so many ways and we offered each other so much mutual support during the early years of divorce. He had the same parallel reason for his divorce – along with exactly similar cases of crazy making, ugh – a minor son still at home, the same profession and love of Belgian ale – and eventually the same cancer. But he always had his birth name. He didn’t have to ask these particular questions and go through this particular legal process. And I wonder what it’s like to never give that part of one’s self over to another person. Do you remain more “yourself”? Are there fewer knots to sort through and less to knit back together? 

Catholic theology holds that an ontological change (a change in one’s being) takes place when two people marry each other. I believe that it can happen – in time, it’s possible – but that it doesn’t necessarily happen. And even more so when vows are not made in good faith. For me, much of my “outside” life changed, including my name. I waited and worked for the “inside” change to happen, but honestly it never did. I think that’s the greatest blessing of all of this. 

Most of the spiritual journey is about having the inside aligned with Spirit and having the outside honestly expressive of the inside. I feel like I have that now – again – in a new way. 

It has only been a week and the joy keeps unfolding as friends and family use my new old name in addressing me, texting me and writing cards telling me that “this is a REALLY big dill” – because it is.