Two Years a To

I wanted to get married as a young child because I wanted to change my last name. At the start of every school year, my teachers would always struggle with pronouncing my last name. I was more thankful for the ones who just waited for me to say it first before trying.

When I got married, I legally changed my name rather quickly for a number of reasons.

1. I was unemployed and had time to wait at the social security office on a weekday for 3 hours.
2. My driver's license expiration was coming up in a few months so it would make it easier to get that changed in one swift motion as well.
3. I always wanted to.

After legally changing my name, I realized that To wasn't necessarily better than Aur. Growing up, chances were I'd end up with a longer last name, because you know, the phonetics of the English alphabet don't allow for many words, much less last names, shorter than three letters. Somehow, I ended up defying all odds there. 

Then, I realized that To was "easy" to pronounce, perhaps too "easy" for most people. Being that it is an actual English word in the alphabet, people get overly confident and pronounce it to͞o. Usually I don't bother correcting them because it's a one-time interaction. I've gotten pretty used to it now, but every now and then if you catch me in the wrong mood, it'll irritate me more than it should.

One time when I was calling the doctor's office for information, I called before office hours so they gave me the option to type in the first three letters of my last name. Well, I typed in my WHOLE last name and hit # and got an error message....so I had to wait and call again after they opened to speak to a real person.

I haven't changed the name on my passport yet because at the time we got married, I had almost 6 years to go until it expired. So whenever we travel out of the country, I just have to remember to book the ticket under my maiden name. The only downside is that sometimes we don't get assigned seats next to each other and have to ask to switch. I've got just under 4 years left, and then my identity as an Aur will only remain in those who knew me as one.

Sometimes when I really think about my name, it' strange that it is what it is. Do I miss my last name? Sometimes. Would I have kept it the same without changing it? Probably not. I remember intentionally asking my students that summer before I got married to call me Ms. Aur instead of Ms. Cathy because I knew it would be the last time I could use that name.

Just before we were Mr. and Mrs. To

I was an Aur for over 23.5 years. I've been a To for 2. Perhaps we will revisit this topic again in another 21 years and I'll tell you how I feel then. :)