changing your name is hard

Everything about changing your name is hard.  It's emotionally hard, letting go of an old name and taking a new one, which means a little bit of letting go of an old identity and taking a new one.  It's physically hard, especially if you have to get discriminated against in the process.  But it's also just logistically hard -- sometimes even impossible. 

There's the social security card, then the passport, and the diver's license, and work, and the bank, etc.  But yesterday I encountered a particularly surprising difficulty when I tried to change the email address associated with the blog.  Not being Erin R. anymore, I tried to switch my log-in credentials over to my shiny new Erin H. email address.... only to discover that it was impossible.  You just can't do it.  So, through several backbends and contortions and a lot of signing out and back in, I finally managed to add my new email, even if the old one is still lingering, attached to the account.  Which hits on one of the weird things about changing your name.

In a lot of ways, you become a whole new person, with all your history wiped out.  I don't have my email history, I don't have any history on blogger (although you can see from my profile that I reserved my new email address shortly after getting engaged, way back in February).  In almost every way, it seems like Erin R. has to get erased for Erin H. to spring into existance.

And so.  If there is a bit of funkiness during the transition, where I appear to be two different people at the same time, rest assured it is not just you.  I actually am two different people at the same time. 

(Erin R.)

(Erin H.)