59. It's all in the name, or is it? - another life lesson

Nearly 46 years ago, my parents went into a government office and registered the name they were giving me.  That name stayed with me until I got married some 17 years ago and added a hypen to include Matt’s family name to my own.  But then last year on a hot and sticky day, as I sat in the office of a career beauracrat in Singapore, I was advised the government there only recognized my maiden name as I had not changed my name by deed poll.  Still I managed to convince him to include my married name on my passport - if only in brackets.  Thinking I was done with all this naming nonsense, I was in for a rude shock when I applied for my US visa —  they only accepted my maiden name and saw my married name as an ‘alias’.  

Wait!  What?  An ‘alias’?  All of a sudden, I found myself suffering a severe case of schizophrenia, swinging from being outraged to feeling like a fraud.  The past 17 years were very much tied to my married persona — my married name was everywhere from my children’s birth certificates, all my legal papers to my university degree and professional papers? Did that mean I had unknowingly committed identify fraud and would therefore be thrown behind bars?  Theatrics aside, with everything else going on with the move, I didn’t have time to deal with it and thought, “How bad can it be?”  Ha!  Famous last words!

When I landed in the US and set about getting my papers together, the enormity of the problem hit me like a brick.  At the Social Security office, although my married name was recorded, it appeared that the nameless person who processed my US visa back in Singapore had swapped my first name (Michelle) and my chinese name (Mei Sar)!  As such, that was the way my name now appeared on my Social Security card.  Ever the optimist (or perhaps from sheer laziness), I thought to myself: “Well, at least the spelling is correct!  How bad can it be?”  Ha again!

A few weeks later, I turned up at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to run through the whole gamut of applying for my driver’s license here.  Whilst sitting with the masses and waiting for my card to be issued, I heard a lady call out: “Lee Mei.  Lee Mei.”  I didn’t see anyone get up.  And then: “Mei Lee, is there a Mei Lee here?”  I remember thinking to myself, “Come on Lee Mei or Mei Lee!  Surely you can hear your name..”  And then, it dawned upon me: hang on, I think they may have butchered my name even more!  Low and behold, I scurried to the window.  Unfortunately, I was right.  So, while I started out as “Michelle Lee-Farlow Mei Sar” 17 years ago, thanks to the bungling of several government offices, I was now “Mei Sar Lee-Farlow Michelle”.  Excellent.  This was now serious.  To cut an already long story short, I reached out to the US embassy in Singapore and after numerous emails back and forth that dragged out over several weeks, it became very clear they were never going to admit they made a mistake.  They did offer me a solution though:  I could change my name through the courts.

My email response to their suggestion was as follows: 

Hang on.  What?  You want me to change my name FROM the name you butchered TO my actual name?  There MUST be something lost in translation here.  Please can I have your supervisor’s contact so I can speak with someone to help me sort this out.

That was about three weeks ago.  No.  I still have not received a response.  Meanwhile, I lost sleep over it as I raged at the stupidity and demented idea of having to change my name to my name.  Surely someone was playing a prank on me but I was just not getting the joke.  Endless 2am wakings followed with me lying in bed fuming at the idiocy of the whole situation until one morning, after hearing me rant about people butchering my name, Matt said to me as he gave me a big hug; “Oh honey, it doesn’t matter what everyone calls you.. You will always be sexy bum to me!” (note: no laughing allowed but yes, that is one of his terms of endearment for me.  Go figure.)  In that moment, I realized there was no use in fighting this.  There was simply no way around it.  I just had to get with the program and do as the powers-that-be instructed - no matter how bonkers the idea appeared to me.   

And so, it is another lesson learned.  Sometimes, things just are.  And you just need to take a big breath and go with it.  At least I am sleeping much better now.

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46: Two wrongs..

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Whenever I finish writing a piece, I always wonder what I will work on next.  Yes, I have about 10 pieces on-the-go but quite often, these pieces just sit there until an incident 'pops up' and provides some insight, or an ENTIRELY new topic will emerge and take on a life on its own.  This is one of the latter:

Recently, I received an unpleasant call and a few bitchy texts because of  “50 Shades of Green”.  From what I gather, in spite of my efforts to be quite generic in one of the illustrations for foolish behavior, someone decided that out of some THIRTY-SEVEN lines (yes, I counted), two referred to her current situation and was so ‘shocked’ she called around to garner support for a “Mishy hate-fest”.   One particular girl rang to give me a piece of her mind but when the conversation turned thuggish and feral, and after failing to reason with her and explain she got it wrong, I had little choice but to hang up.  Rude, I know.  But I get awfully emotional when someone is yelling at me, being sarcastic about my ‘perfect family’ and trying to dictate what I can and cannot write about.  Sorry, but since when did I proclaim everything in my life was perfect?!  Obviously she has not read my scribblings and lives in La-La Land if she believes in ‘perfection’.  Anyhow, I did follow it up  with a calmer email to try to address the points raised in her accusations:

1. No, a GENERAL commentary on the state of relationships today does not break-up marriages -- people’s careless behavior within AND outside of a relationship causes break-ups.
2. I don’t go around telling her or anyone else what to wear or how to behave (don’t start me!), so nobody has a right to tell me what to write about.  And if she (or anyone) doesn’t like the content, don't read it.  Please.

Now, I could continue this piece with a further narration of what happened next and reveal this particular girl’s duplicitous behavior and her on-going charade of ‘sugar-and-spice-and-all-things-nice’.  In fact, when I first wrote this piece, I did.  And then I deleted it all.  Why?  Although all I would have had done was laid bare the truth, it made me feel physically ill that someone else’s venom and spitefulness could manipulate me into an exchange of hateful and sarcastic verbal warfare. Quite simply, as I previously said in “Mean Girls”, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Don’t get me wrong.  Normally, my primal instinct is to fight back and throw ‘mud’ back at my aggressor.  Nearly always.  After years of being put down by bullies and taken advantage of, I spent a good chunk of my late teens and early 20s like a bull in a china shop, under the mistaken belief I was fighting for the truth and HAD to stand up for myself.  And then,  I realized something.  I didn’t like being that person, the one filled with anger and a poisoned tongue, always ready for a fight.  And of course, becoming a mother also made me mindful of what kind of learned behavior I wanted the girls to have – if only for them to have an easier life in the ‘jungle’ of life.  And so, over time, I learnt to choose my ‘battles’.  At times, it has meant biting my tongue, hoping that the truth would come out, only to be disappointed.  But time is a great healer and no matter the end-result, once the initial indignation and disappointment fades, I ALWAYS feel better in myself that I didn’t stoop to the other party’s level.  After all, silence, they say, is golden.

I took the girls to the National Library yesterday to change their books.  As I was attempting a reverse park, a woman used her car to aggressively ‘nudge’ me to ‘speed it up’.  Much to her dismay, and especially fed-up after the drama from a couple of days ago, I stepped out of my car and approached her’s – mid-pivot.  Nervously, she wound her window down.  My “there is no need for that sort of behavior.  Please be patient…” was met with her haughty “just move your car”.  I shot back with a “you have terrible manners!”, finished the park, and headed upstairs to return the girls’ books.  Low and behold, a couple of minutes later, the same woman stood behind us in line.  As my three girls were first in line, I told them to stand aside for the woman as she seemed to be in a hurry.  They did and she said thank you – somewhat grudgingly.   She hurried away looking a little shamefaced.   My little one recognized her and asked why we let her go first even though she was so ‘mean’ before.  I just said, “Sweetie, two wrongs don’t make a right and sometimes doing the right thing is the best action.”  And with that lesson passed on, we continued on our way. 

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