Falling Apart and Becoming. And Who Are You, Anyway?

Here’s a funny little story. Maybe I’ve told parts of it before.

My older daughter has been bothering me to set up an online account with Social Security for about a year now (safety/security issues to protect my account from fraud).

I tried several times back in the spring. Each time, I’d get to the last step in this time-consuming business and the system would tell me it couldn’t verify my identity. It felt like I didn’t exist, like a “nobody.” Infuriating.

It took several calls before someone finally figured out that it came down to my name.

When I got married, I dropped my maiden name. A year later, I regretted it. I missed having the part of my identity that associated me with my Jewish ancestors.

So I talked to people about it.

Someone told me, “just start using the name you want on all your official documents, and you will become that person.”

This person who told me this was not a “nobody.” It was someone in banking, who knew what they were talking about!

Everyone agreed this was how to go about it.

So, instead of going back to change it, I simply began using a hyphenated last name. At the time, hyphenation still seemed radical and “modern.”

And it felt right; I preserved a part of me that came from the past as I was becoming someone else.

But who could have predicted back in 1988 that we were on the cusp of a whole new age—a thing called the Internet? Both the gifts and the real problems it would pose?

Many websites still haven’t figured out how to recognize hyphens (airlines and credit cards, for instance). Yet it’s not an issue for a U.S. passport or a driver’s license. Also curiously, no one ever asked me to verify my name when attaining these documents!! Thinking back, it amazes me that my original, falling-apart birth certificate from 1962 used to get me into and out of Mexico and the U.S.—with no photo I.D. to back me up! They just believed me that I was who I said I was!

I finally got to the Civil Court today.

I got there early, with all the necessary documents on hand (yes, I actually had all of them, unbelievably!), went over them with the clerk who stamped them all, went upstairs to the cashier who also stamped them as well, went back downstairs, got in line again, handed them in, and waited.

This was when the line started really growing. It was good I got there early. This was also how I got to learn other people’s stories. Who knew there were so many people out there needing to verify they exist?

One guy’s job, I learned, is helping people get Italian citizenship. He brought out these huge, ancient, bound record books from the 1930’s, twi at a time. It fascinated me to see all these handwritten names from a non-digital age, and to think about what we’ve become.

Another guy told me how he’s been reinventing himself after a divorce, living in Mexico City.

One woman was in tears; she had been there numerous times, each time being told she needed something more. Today was no exception. Born in New York, living in England with her Dutch husband, and trying to get a Dutch passport.

She said she was done with this country—”So scary what’s happening.” “The world is scary,” I said. She agreed.

Nonetheless, I told her I was sooo jealous that she has the option of living in Europe—and reinventing her life. (I’m not complaining about mine; this kind of change always just seems exciting to me.)

This all reminded me of a book I’m reading now, written by an old friend, Chani Getter, called Mapito. In the book, they talk about their experience of changing their identity, transitioning from an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who was permitted to only wear skirts and dresses as a child, to one who was “trying on” a new persona—someone they were becoming—by wearing blue jeans.

At its core, the book is about becoming yourself, discovering who you really are beneath what you’ve been told and taught you ought to be according to family and societal expectations. As a therapist, this is what Chani helps others discover for themselves.

For Chani (who, by the way, officiated my daughter’s wedding a few years ago), it was also about embracing their nonbinary self—sometimes Mamita, sometimes Papito—thus Mapito!)

I love that Chani says that, at some point after trying on their new identity in the safety of loving company, they found themselves comfortable going out in the world, facing gossipy whispers and judgmental looks without a problem; they were comfortable with the person they had discovered, and with who they were becoming.

The truth is, all those people at Civil Court, and all of us, we all have multiple identities; we are all those people, all the names we’ve ever had. (The clerk must have written ten more AKA’s for me, just in case.) And though we may have to prove who we are to others, we shouldn’t have to; because inside, we don’t have anything to prove.

All this got me thinking further about how the High Holy Days are all about teshuvah, or returning, literally.

Teshuvah is typically thought of as returning to God through repentance. But it can be thought of as returning to our true selves, the core of who we really are underneath all the layers.

These holidays are not just about transforming who we are, but also, thereby, helping transform the world.

This part of this story of mine is now complete; I’m waiting for a judge’s discretion to grant my name change. It looks like a done deal.

But I am not a done deal. I am, and have been, many different people in my life, with many hyphens. I continue changing, becoming someone and something else.

That’s true for all of us. And the world as well.

As we enter Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which part of ourselves do we want to return to? Who do we want to become? And how can these impact the world and help it along on its journey of becoming?

After this experience with my name “change,” I would say to anyone who asks, don’t ever change your name!! The bureaucracy is too great! And the digital age has made it harder.

But more importantly, can we just believe and accept others when they say who they are—and without judgment?

Change can be exciting, but also scary. Maybe our country feels like it’s falling—even falling apart; maybe it will “break” even more.

But who knows? Maybe we’re on the cusp of a whole new age, and we can’t even imagine it.

In their book, Chani quotes the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement, who said, “Let me fall if I must fall; the one I am becoming will catch me.”

So, as a prayer, let us fall if we must fall; the world that is becoming will catch us.