Emily Dressel: R.I.P.

Once there was a girl named Emily Dressel. She was born with a tuft of white hair and a stubborn expression. She hated naps and adored soup. She was shy around the boys, inquisitive in class, and poker-faced on the pitcher’s mound. She blossomed in college with the discovery of $3 Boone’s Strawberry Hill.

My name has served me well over the last thirty years. Dressel. D (like David)-r-e-s-s (like Sam)-e-l. It is a good name. Near the top of the class roster – but not too high up so you had time to mentally prepare yourself if Mrs. Swanson asked everyone to spontaneously recite a haiku or name the Presidents backwards. Strangely, pizza order-takers and restaurant hostesses were universally compelled to lump a “LER” at the end. Apparently, Dressler flowed better in ink. Then, of course, there was that painful instance in 5th grade when some clever chump during recess unleashed utter humiliation in my initials: “E.D. = Explosive Diarrhea”. He wrote it in orange chalk next to the Four Square corner, albeit with several misspellings. His initials were “BC”. The best zinging retort I could spit back at the time, amidst pure playground-peer-pressured-panic, was “Birth Canal”. I can still feel the oppressive heat of jungle-gym stares.

I never personally ran into another E.D. Although one of my pals in high school told me that at her regional swim meet in Michigan, an imposter named Emily Dressel, banged her shoulder on the diving board during a routine back-flip. Apparently, “klutz” runs in the letters.

A few weeks ago, I said “I do”, setting into motion the daunting name-changing process. DMV, Frequent Flier Miles, Credit Cards, ROTH IRAs, Netflix, Work Email, Passport, USPS – the list goes on and on. Using www.knot.com as my “professional” guide to seamless marital transitions, I first bounded over to the Social Security Office. I am quite confident the waiting room chairs had maggots hatching on them or at least head lice, so I opted to stand in the back for fifty minutes while defiantly clutching my purse and attempting to look tough in my Ann Taylor sweater and pearl necklace. There were about a dozen screaming infants and toddlers running amuck with snot crusting on their cheeks, sucking on car keys and cell phones. There was one crazy white-haired lady with a walker who repeatedly shouted “What line?!” to the automated computer check-in screen and a woman in black tights and 5-inch stilettos who strutted past the police officer, dragging her 90 lb. Boxer, insisting that he was a seeing-eye-dog. I overheard two men in knit caps exchanging prison release dates and one androgynous individual, completely horizontal in row 12 appeared to be passed out or possibly dead. When my number was called, I clutched my tidy folder, containing all forms of identification, including my library card and gym membership, and marched up to Counter F. She took one look at me, half-smiled and said, “Let me guess. You just got hitched.”

There is a funny kind of mourning that comes with changing your name. In some ways, it feels like slicing off a pinky finger. True, it’s superfluous. After all, it is just a name, but yet it is subtly sentimental. Who am I if I am not Emily Dressel? My very identity.

It was the name my parents spoke aloud after kissing me on the forehead and some random nurse typed up on a birth certificate. It was the name bathed in incense during my baptism and the one that awaited me in my first grade cubbyhole on masking tape so I knew where to hang my Punky Brewster lunch box. The name appeared on T-ball trophies, in Wednesday Journal articles, and was carved into high school academic plaques. Emily Dressel was what was written on the front of the oversized Stanford University envelope next to a 72-font YES! that plopped through the mail slot one Tuesday in April. This is the name I have signed for decades on homework assignments, permission slips, petitions, and on the back of my first Visa card. The sound of it makes me turn my head, look up, and feel recognized. In fact, I get a bit jealous and competitive when I fumble across another Emily Dressel on google or Facebook. I mean who exactly do they think they are living with MY name all this time? And with that haircut?

This whole pursuit of legal reinvention is my choice and my choice alone though. Many of my female friends have kept their maiden names for various personal or professional reasons and Brad would have been happy with whatever I decided. This is something I wanted to do. A cutting of one cord and a Tarzan vine-leap onto another as Brad and I set off as a family, awaiting whoever or whatever may join our little duo along the way.

And so I am practicing my cursive H’s. It is one of the few capital letters that require an exhaustive pen lift. Several pen lifts, in fact. I can’t seem to get it to look just right. Hampson. It is harmless. Alphabetically acceptable. In the middle of the pack – not too cocky, but not too timid either. And thus far, only one person actually thought I was marrying one of the Hanson brothers with mushroom hair. It is a benign, next-door-neighborly, quaint, all-American kind of name. It will fit easily on the backs of my kids’ Little League jerseys or on the cover of my great American novel. No one will get hurt. It could be so much more controversial. My sister-in-law, for example, willingly adopted the new last name of “Gross”. (No offense, Mike, but that is true love right there.) But, still, it is going to take some getting used to. I don’t know Emily Hampson yet. I’m sure that will evolve after many cross outs, corrections, and voids in my checkbook. I trust she will eventually become broken in and comfortable and start to feel like sweatpants.

Fortunately, I have wracked my brain during quiet moments and commercial breaks and can’t come up with any disgusting gastrointestinal ailments that can be derived from E.H. The worst I can formulate is Excessive Halitosis. But, give me time. We’ve only just met.