My name, his name, what name?

This birdcage was a birthday present to myself last year that I am finally getting around to revitalizing it.  Not sure what it will become, maybe a curiosity-cabinet and plant stand.  I was offered a parrot but upon reflection, I don't think the cat could handle such temptation as fowl-play on her doorstep. 

 But why am I drawn to the idea of birdcages?  I suppose it is both form and function.  And it reminds me that the cage can be a respite and a prison and the difference is sometimes down to perception.  For much of my life, I've often felt like I was in a cage, occasionally with the door left open, only find myself 

You see, my family name 'Howse' wasn't the name my father was born with. My dad went to live with his maternal grandparents when he was 9, when my great-grandfather came across my dad being beaten with a bullwhip.  At 12, his father was found murdered - probably in a drugs/women/booze-related trifecta - and my father was adopted. He took the name 'Howse' when he was 12, the year is father died. The year Kennedy was assinated. Ask SSG Howse about his life before he was 9, and you often get a blank, vaguely wounded look.  The walls he has created to protect himself are too high. In so many ways, his life didn't begin until he was 9.

 But he left behind siblings and that guilt tears at him. And it explains a lot of the middle-class transiency that went on to define my own existence.  And my own guilt about being middle-class, the deep sense of not ever quite belonging. Throw in a name - 'Howse' - it is both mine and not mine. 

This tweak in names and identity would create lots of confusion after I was born, when it was discovered that his Army paperwork had his date of adoption as his date of birth. It meant I was initially registered under my mother's citizenship (almost, so close, eligible for dual citizenship). When I got married in 2015, my idea of combining names fell on unimpressed and uninspired ears. Maybe it was because I was marrying an Establishment Englishman, you know? And you know the kind of establishment dude I mean, the kind who feel the need to tell you that they are a feminist

A few years ago, I was having coffee with a friend in Czech(ia? I still can't quite wrap my head around this change), talking about tattoos and she compared me to an Alpine Swift.  'THIS could be your tattoo.'  But I have too many scars to want of another, even 

Apparently, Alpine swifts will never voluntarily settle, and can spend six to seven months without having to land. But do they worry about changing their genus classification.  I suppose there is a resemblance as I look upon my forty-third house move with a hybrid of resignation and excitement.  Of course, not knowing when it will occur adds an extra frissón of electricity.  But I'm not a swift. I do not have wings. Yet.

The feeling is similar to what I felt when I changed my last name when I married: resignation and excitement.  I had thought it would be something to combine our names, create a new one. That did not transpire and perhaps the vociferous manner in which Is as vetoed should have given me pause. Too late now, the name is changed and now there a children and international travel in a world still very much ruled by the politics of patriarchy. And to dvhange it back? An unnecessary expense.

A few months ago..June, I think, I was having one of those flirtatious online chats with potential that people sometimes have.  I have not had many of these chats because I had not allowed myself to acknowledge that I needed or wanted that kind of energy in my life.  I had (and still have) work to do.  Co-dependency issues aside, I am also a bit of commitment-philiac: I love being in a  relationship, love being part of a team. It sometimes irks me to admit it, mainly because I am also a bit of a 'Lone Wolf.' Turns out the contradiction and its corollary can be true and held in the same person. And yet, it exists in so many of us.

'Change my name,' I tend to shoot back in these conversations when discussions about marriage come about. Why should I have to change anymore than I ready have?   Over the summer, it made me pause.  Should I need to change my name? Why does anyone need to change names? And at this stage, I don't even know you share food. That, to me, is far more important.  I mean when you're looking at a menu and you want multiple things and the person you are with orders a couple of things that you would like and you order a couple of things that they would like...or one of you has food envy...you share, right? That, for me, that is an important part of a romance. Sharing. Sharing is, as Daniel Tiger reminds us, caring.

We turn to people we care about, going about I found something! Look! I am sharing it with you. Maybe they appreciate the 'thing' maybe they don't. But they should appreciate that you're sharing something - even insignificant - with them. Not everything. I mean, come on! Not everyone wants to know what you had for lunch, not every day. And that is okay, actually come across a storage locker you forgot you had, you want to share that find, you know?  

But I digress. We were talking about names and it got me thinking about my last name. I fiddled around briefly on social media, taking the married bit down.  I've been of several minds about keeping it, to be honest.  And in the end, I've decided - for now - I have the best of all of the name worlds. In my work life I get to be 'Howse Binnington, in my private life, I get to be 'Howse,' and when I am in 'mama bear' mode, I am (usually) Binnington. I travel a LOT internationally with my kids and having the same name makes it easier. It shouldn't, but it does. And so I keep the name the way it is because I have more important things to spend my money on.