City of Angels

My oldest friend was here to visit for the weekend. She is 20-some weeks pregnant and adorable. We met when we were five, but didn't become fast friends until I enrolled at the same elementary school in the fourth grade. After that it was all about birthday parties, sleepovers, trips with our families to Central Oregon, camping, skiing, notes written in class, talking about who we did and didn’t want to go to dances with, promising that the first one of us to get a boyfriend would give the other flowers, whispering about which of the boys we knew we’d want to marry…Funny thing is, we’re actually still with those boys. And we’re both happy. Oldest Friend is married to her high school sweetheart. I’m marrying the guy that was my pen pal in high school. He and I met at summer camp. I think if you asked either of us whether we expected that, we might say, “no.” But I think secretly we would think, “yes.”

It’s amazing that she and I have grown up together and seen each other through every stage of our lives. How bizarre to know what someone was like at age 10 and then to see them pregnant with their second child. And though we’re at different stages, we’re still struggling with issues of identity and how to create the life that feels the most right to us.

It’s a little hard for me to know she’s on child #2 when I’m on child #0. I had this fantasy of our two families taking vacations together like she and I did growing up. And now that she’s farther along, our children will never be the same age and will probably have little interest in each other. This is sad to me and sometimes I regret waiting so long to move things along in the family department. But I wasn’t ready and she was, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Having her here to visit was wonderful. She’s never seen my life in Los Angeles, so it was nice to introduce her to parts of it. But I always struggle with introducing a new person to LA, a city that I really like. All I can see when I take someone new around are the ugly things and the traffic. I think I see the city through the eyes of someone looking for its faults, rather than what is great about it. I think a lot of Angelenos have self-esteem issues when it comes to our city. So many people trash talk about LA (usually either New Yorkers, San Franciscans (?), or people who have never been here) that it’s easy to become self-conscious.

LA has so many wonderful things about it: the weather, the ocean, the multi-culturalism, the wide open spaces, amazing parks, great food, shopping, and every movie made gets screened here. I love the mixture of architecture, and how the city continues to push the boundries of contemporary design. Though many people might think of Angelenos as being stuck-up, image-obsessed, and shallow, the people I know here are so normal, laid back, smart, and welcoming. As a city made of transplants, people in general are more open to meeting each other and making friends. It’s great.

But this weekend the weather was gloomy and all I could see was the ugly and that makes me sad. I don’t know why I feel like I need my choice to live here validated, but I do. I want someone to tell me that I made the right choice, that they can see why I’m happy here, that it’s okay I haven’t “settled down” yet, that I’m doin’ good and that that’s enough right now.

Mrs. His Name

So yeah, I’m getting married this summer. I still feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach when it’s just layed out like that. I’ve been with my boyfriend for 12 years. 12 years. That’s practically half my life at this point (I’ll be 31 this spring). Whenever I hear of someone that’s getting married to a person they’ve known since they were teenager, I question it, as if they don’t know what they’re doing or they haven’t lived enough to make a choice like that so early. Yet it makes perfect sense for me to be with the person I started dating my first year of college. Today I’m not interested in getting into the why-did-it-take-us-so-long, I’d really rather think about the whole name change thing.

I went to an all women’s college. It was one of my best choices. I loved it. Things about it still give me shivers. It informed so much of who I am today, particularly the feminist in me. It took me a long time to figure out what kind of feminist I wanted to be: one that feels okay wearing lipstick and heels, one that doesn’t judge stay-at-home moms, one that has a sense of humor, one that is aware and can speak up when necessary. It took me a long time and I felt guilty about a lot of things until I realized the most powerful thing you can do is be yourself.

So what happens when you get married and you have to decide whether or not to change your name? I have so many conflicting conversations happening in my head. My name is my father’s name, names are patriarchal to begin with. But it’s who I’ve been my whole life. This is my identity. But by getting married I’m forming a family, a new family, shouldn’t we have the same name? But why should it be the man’s name? Why shouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be easier for our family and any future children to all have the same name? Would it really matter if we didn’t? It’s going to piss me off every time someone writes on an envelope: Mrs. His Name. I really, really hate that. I get annoyed when telemarketers call and ask for Mrs. His Last Name. But I also used to work at a school and it really helped clarify things when kids had the same last name as their parents. His last name is fine, it’s nothing bad, just like mine isn’t. They are really normal-sounding British names. But I hate writing the capitalized letter of his last name. I like how my signature looks. I’m really lazy and probably won’t change it anyway. Should I really allow my laziness to make my decision for me (not that it hasn’t happened that way before)? I don’t like the alternatives anymore than the main option (him taking my name, a combo of our names, sharing a middle name, hyphenating, etc.). I might just end up using my current last name as a middle name, sort of a Hillary Rodham Clinton solution. But it’s not like that lasted.