…and so, the woman who has wished for years and years and years to be in a wonderfully loving relationship & for someone to love her dearly enough and truly enough for her to have the title of “wife,” and the woman who, at 14 years old, when she had her very first pang of ‘true love’ swirled and twirled her pens and markers over and over and over on every album cover and any blank piece of paper in her bedroom, writing and signing her name as if she were married to this boy she was sure she “loved,” rather unexpectedly and surprisingly finds herself telling her betrothed that she doesn’t think she’s going to take his name when they get married later this year…the girl who wondered what her signature would look like with every last name of every “real” boyfriend she’s ever had,  how it would flow on a credit card receipt or her driver’s license, and how the letters would wind and weave around themselves, is oddly, now that she has finally found one dear enough and true enough, for REAL, a man who loves her for all that she is, and more importantly, despite all that she is not, is not practicing her ‘new’ signature with a new last name…

I might take his name, but I might not…it doesn’t matter either way, I don’t think, but what I find strange is that for the first time in my adult life there is real unconditional love, and there was a real proposal, and there was a really beautiful ring, and there is talk and conversation and planning about dates and guests and vows…and with all this wonderful reality, I suddenly find myself no longer pretending…