I feel like I’m in such a weird place of flux and transition with my name right now. It has been a long time, so long that I can’t even remember when I last felt a strong connection with my birth name. I’m not averse to it and it doesn’t feel like a “dead name” that brings up bad memories or feelings. I just feel apathetic to it. As in it’s something you can use to identify me but the name isn’t the same as who I am.

When I got married last year I changed my last name to something that my partner and I created together based on our matriarchal heritages. And that feels meaningful in a special way. I also decided to take the opportunity while I was doing all the paperwork to change my legal middle name to the name I have thought for years would be a good fit for me. Something mostly gender neutral but feminine leaning.

The last few weeks I’ve switched to using the chosen name as my primary name in most of my social circles and my friends and partners have been amazing about picking it up consistently and quickly. But I’m still using my first name at work. And it’s creating this odd dissonance for my brain.

I told my boss about it and she is very supportive and really loves my new name. But I haven’t rolled it out to my team yet because it feels so complicated to educate everyone and change it on all the various documents and systems. Not to mention feeling like a burden for being confusing. My strategy was going to be to wait until I got a new position because I was interviewing this month for a job within the company I found out I didn’t get. So now I’m not sure if I should keep waiting and hope I switch jobs soon or if I should just go ahead and tell my team and do the work of educating and updating now.

Being in transition is such an odd experience.