Miss Alphabet

Journal #15

Yesterday in English Composition the professor was handing back assignments. He was calling out our names because he is still not familiar enough to know each of us individually. When he said “Miss Alphabet” I held out my hand. He said, “You knew I meant you?”  A couple days earlier he had asked how to say my last name so I figured it was my name he was referring to. I already knew my hyphenated last name was a bit long and difficult. I am the one who has to sign it all the time. Yesterday was the first time I thought about the fact that I do have exactly half of the alphabet in my name. N-A-C-Y-U-B-E-R-T-I-P-K-S.

I still don’t regret my decision to keep my name and there is a reason for it. Until I was 18 years old I was Nancy Aubertin. Then I got married and for the next 16 years I was Nancy Arvan. I kept that name for another 10 or more years, even after I got divorced. I had nothing against the name Arvan – both my kids are Arvans and they are fabulous. There was always a part of me that missed being an Aubertin and I wanted to change it. I had all the papers to change it at one time, but then Noah joined the Marines and he was deployed to Iraq and I just couldn’t part with the name that we shared. A couple years after Noah was home I had come to the conclusion that my long-time boyfriend was never going to propose – I changed my name to Aubertin. Two years later, after dating for 9 years, guess who proposed? That’s right, Darrell Pipkins proposed. I knew at that moment that I would take his name, but I wasn’t ready to give up mine. It had taken me a long time to get it back and I didn’t want to lose it again. I know I am always the same person, no mater what name I have. But I felt more connected to my past and the person I truly am with the Aubertin name. So, now I am Nancy Aubertin-Pipkins. Yes, it is a long name and I get annoyed myself with having to sign it. I am learning to fit it into the tiny spaces that are often on forms that need to be filled out. I am learning that some places can’t accommodate the hyphen so I become Aubertinpipkins. Some places also will choose (without consulting me for my preference) one or the other and then I have to guess as to how they have put me in their system. If anyone has difficulty with my name, well, I guess you can call me Miss Alphabet. I like the alphabet. In fact, I have my own language I have concocted out of the alphabet. I will save that for another journal entry.