When I first decided to divorce, I didn’t know what to do about my name. I had legally changed my name to take on my husband’s name. It was important to me because I wanted there to be a “physical” representation of family unity – I wanted to share a last name with my children. It was hard enough to be breaking the family apart, but to do it in name also? Maybe I should just keep my married name?

For a good year, I was torn. A name change would be an obvious marker to everyone around me that I divorced. I rued past-me’s decision to change it – I have a number of friends who kept their maiden names in marriage. It would have been so much easier, more subtle, less vexing for the children. I thought of possible workarounds: keep my married name legally and use my maiden name informally, keep my married name and give it new meaning, change back to my maiden name legally and use my married name informally.

But as time wore on, and the more I saw how abused and cornered I had been, I began wanting to take up more space – more space for me. I decided to claim back my maiden name at work. No one batted an eye. It felt good to have something in my name again. That any of my accomplishments would be mine. I soft-launched my name at home by sending Amazon packages addressed to my maiden name. A few weeks later, I talked to my kids about how some moms have the same last name as their kids, and others don’t. They started using my last names interchangeably.

And then 3 days ago, on January 1st, I relaunched my pre-married email with my maiden name. What’s interesting to me is that this decision to change my name sort of made itself. The more I grew and healed from the abuse, the more I began to love myself. The more I became proud of who I was and how I’ve endured, the more I wanted to be fully me: name and all.

I’m proud of the freedom and healing I worked for. I’m proud that I can love me in a way I had never loved myself before. Jesus tells his disciples to “love one another as you love yourself.” For most people, it’s an urging to love others MORE because people love themselves so much. For me (and I suspect many in abusive relationships), we do a better job loving others than ourselves. We say to ourselves, “of course others should be respected, safe, loved, but I can be treated like garbage. I will get the crumbs. It’s ok.”

It’s not ok. And I finally am learning that for me. What’s in my name? Love.