What’s In a Name?

When I was finally free, both physically and psychically, I wanted and needed as much distance as I could possibly get.

Changing the last name I had taken on in marriage was an obvious and exciting way to do this— a Rebirth!

For so long I had been stymied from pursuing my inclinations and interests, my voice staunched and growth impeded. How liberating for there to be a wide-open field of names from which to choose, reflecting the ME I was getting back to and also growing into.

So what to change it to?

I never liked my maiden name so that wasn’t an option.

Somewhere in my house are dozens of notebooks filled with scrawling documenting the post-separation de-fogging of my brain.

Names that I was trying out run across many pages.

Rose was one of them. The rose gardens I created in my marital home were my sanctuary and the one place I had free creative rein. Roses had defined me. But did they still? Not sure.

Another top contender was Gonne. This one because of how much I admire the Irish firebrand for independence Maud, unfortunately pigeon-holed as the muse of Yeats, and also because of how proud I was of actually and miraculously being Gone.

My son and daughter were sweetly supportive of my wanting to change my name, and I remember giddily running current favorites past each of them.

But as supportive as they were about this change, they ended up giving me second thoughts about the whole thing.

They still had the family name.

Marital separation probably brings bumps to the mother-child relationship even when the person you are divorcing is kind and rational.

For me, between the worldwide headlines of criminal violence that prompted the separation, and the ramped-up abuse against the children that is standard punishment whenever someone leaves an abusive partner, the bumps were earthquakes.

So taking on a different name from my children would separate us just when I felt I needed to draw us closer.

Then there was the fact that, as the four-times-married Berenice says in the Carson McCullers novel Member of the Wedding, “things accumulate around a name.”

I had built up a reputation as a children’s photographer, and had three books out, two centered around my black and white photos and one a biography of Brandon de Wilde, the child actor in the movie of the above-mentioned book, and all with the last name “McLean”.

Another factor in the "will I/won’t I debate was that I had nothing to be ashamed of. Let the person who accumulated shameful acts around their name, change theirs.

And, last but not least, I was exhausted.

There had been a tremendous loss, of everything from my place in the world, to the lightening bugs, dragonflies, and peepers in my backyard that gave me so much joy and comfort for 25 years, to my post office box.

I was still picking up the pieces of my shattered life and still dealing with court motions (domestic abusers weaponize courts the way they weaponize children).

I just couldn’t fathom having to now take on the process of changing every single one of the countless official documents that listed my name.

In March it will be the six-year anniversary of my divorce and freedom. And six more years as Patrisha McLean.

Now, when someone calls my name it sounds good, it sounds right, and it sounds like only me.