I put the locations of overnight van stops into two categories: desirable or necessary. Desirable places are free, wild, and at least semi-legal; a police officer won’t knock on our window at 1 a.m. demanding that we move. We’ve gone to sleep on a cliff in the Badlands, a mountainside clearing with a view of the Grand Tetons, an Iowan gravel road beside a lake that turned bright pink at sunset. More commonly, we’ll sleep in a wide,

simple field or tree-lined clearing. These places are easier to find the further west we travel, where there are less people and more public land. In the western half of the country, we can sniff out a desirable place almost every time.

Necessary locations are also semi-legal and free, but far less sexy. Think: Walmart parking lots, hotel parking lots, shopping center parking lots. So, parking lots. But not those that are at trailheads or adjacent to any sort of greenery–these are noisy and homogenous, with lights the size of cookie sheets beaming through the clear plastic top of the fan above our bed. These are typical east coast fare. It’s possible to find desirable places on the east coast, and we often do, but parking lots are easier and more prevalent. Plus, if you’re at a Walmart, it means you have instant access to food, goods, and a toilet.

I hate Walmart. 

We park there when we don’t have the time or energy to find a nicer spot, and of course we end up needing something from inside, so I walk in, use the bathroom, wander the always-slightly-different-from-every-other-Walmart-I’ve-ever-been-in map until I arrive at whatever box of pasta or screws we need, then quickly check out and return to the back of the parking lot. I hate the bigness of everything, the reputation of the company, how everyone inside looks sad, and how freakishly bright the lights are. And the ceilings, which have bleach-white pipes jutting everywhere against a dirty-snow background. Even as a kid, I hated the ceilings. 

So, two days ago, when I found myself wandering through a Walmart for over an hour, listening to soothing music through earbuds and pleasantly forgetting what I came in to buy, I felt a little jarred. I stopped short in the cleaning supplies aisle to search my brain for what I was supposed to be doing. I had been hypnotized by red dutch ovens glinting on their hooks, thirty different styles of desk lamps, mounds of undersized radishes that huddled together as if for warmth. I opened my phone and read a fifteen-minute-old text from Robby, who was in the van with our dog: “You just going to live in there now?” For a second, I thought, maybe.

When we finished the northeast portion of our trip in early August, we headed toward Big Sky, Montana, where my little sister was working as a camp counselor. She was leaving at the end of the month, so we needed to hurry. We pulled five- to nine-hour days and made it there in a week. We stayed in Big Sky for one week, then had to head back to North Carolina for wedding events on Labor Day weekend. From the day we moved into the van, we’ve been on a deadline. This means we wake up, make a pot of coffee, and go. We haven’t had the chance to stumble upon a place and park there for a week or two, which is one of the core reasons I was drawn to this lifestyle in the first place. So far, it feels like a perpetual commute. It’s a commute that I’m deeply enjoying, but the fact that we’ve always had an imminent destination puts me on edge. Someone is expecting us; we have to get there.

A couple hours before I was put into a Walmart trance, we were parked at a Desirable place: a boat launch with tall trees that parted in a narrow gap to reveal dark blue water. The thin gravel road ended in a large circle typical of rural boat launches. We parked smack in the middle of it. The ground was level (no need to switch which direction we slept so that our heads would remain above our feet), and it was clear that no one would bother us. We hadn’t seen a single car since leaving the highway nearly ten minutes ago. 

Robby looked around nervously. Flies the size of camera lenses knocked against the windshield.

“I don’t like it here,” he said. I found that strange. This was not the first time we’d stayed at a rural boat launch; they’re common spots for overnight van parking.

“Why not?” I asked.

“What if something happens? We’re miles away from anybody.”

We had briefly paused the podcast we were listening to, which was about a little boy who was kidnapped and murdered in rural Minnesota.

“Is this about the podcast?” I asked. I was slightly creeped out too–it wasn’t often that we parked in a place this remote, and we’d been listening to hours of careful reporting on the atrocities that can happen when other people aren’t around.

“Maybe a little,” he said. “Want to just find a Walmart or something?”

As we kept driving, I scanned the back of the van. It was a wreck. A pile of clean clothes that we’d yet to put away was split between the nook–which is what we call the small bench with a swivel desk–and the bed, which served as the eternal catchall for things that needed to be secured before we could start driving. The gigantic silver sunshades were layered messily on the blanket since they were too cumbersome to roll up nicely. A book, a laptop, and a mysterious charging cord were tangled together on a pillow. Charlie’s little fleece sweater, which probably smelled awful, was resting on top of clean underwear. 

If this were a house, or even a tiny apartment, these minor misplacements would not add up to a mess. We each only had one drawer’s worth of clothing, for crying out loud. But that was part of the issue: things needed to be folded, rolled, put away precisely in the right spot. While cleaning the space required less work overall, it demanded strict methodology. The van was always three crumpled t-shirts away from looking like a frat house. 

We pulled into the Walmart parking lot an hour later. We’d been driving through a heat wave for a day and a half, and the pavement practically sizzled as the sun went down. I felt caught between our cluttered van, which we did not have the energy to deep clean, and the wall of heat just outside the door. So, I said I needed to pick up a few things and went into Walmart, land of aisles wider than my house. 

As I emerged from the Walmart hypnosis, realizing that the only thing in my cart after nearly an hour was a bottle of sunscreen, I quickly gathered a few other items and went back outside. With each step I took toward the van, the spell grew weaker. By the time I reached our darkened space at the back of the parking lot, I was sweating and fatigued. I swung open the back doors of the van. 

“Great, you’re back,” said Robby. “I need to use the bathroom.” We have a composting toilet, but do our best to reserve it for emergencies. He closed his laptop–he had been finishing up some work–kissed Charlie on the head, and went inside.

I hauled the cooler out from the under-bed storage space, commonly called “the garage.” We had a top-rate marine refrigerator in the kitchen, but it had stopped working the second we got on the road. We were pretty sure we needed a larger battery for the solar panels, but it was possible the fridge itself was broken. Either way, we simply transitioned our food to a Yeti cooler instead of addressing the problem head-on. It had worked okay so far.

I opened the cooler. The heat had completely melted the ice. The cardboard packaging of a few different items had dissolved into little pieces that floated like algae. A half-eaten bag of spinach was full of green water. What’s more, a tub of butter had melted, tipped, and spilled. Everything in the cooler was coated in a fatty sheen.

I almost cried. It was 9 p.m. and 90 degrees. I was huddled in a Walmart parking lot, and it occurred to me as I used my hands to scoop fistfuls of butter out of a cooler that I had no idea what state I was in. Kentucky, right? Or were we already in Tennessee? I think the boat launch had been in Illinois–were we still there? I decided it didn’t matter. I piled our food–now buttery garbage–on to the pavement beside me while Charlie looked down from the bed, head resting on perfectly circular paws. 

I thought about taking a picture of the mess. Since moving into the van, I had felt some excitement about posting on Instagram again, both for posterity (I rarely take pictures of anything, and I want to document this adventure) and because I get a shallow sense of validation when other people see what I’m doing. It doesn’t feel healthy, but I think it’s common. There’s a primal itch that’s scratched when I can post an update to people in or adjacent to my circle, people that I grew up with, or went to school with, whom I haven’t thought about in a while and who have not thought about me. I’m here, and I’m doing something interesting. 

For over a year before purchasing our van, I was plugged into “van life” Instagram. It first came from a place of curiosity, and then as Robby and I got more serious about making the shift, I used the accounts to gather information. I learned about solar panels, water tanks, composting vs. cassette toilets, the pros and cons of various layouts. I watched van tours obsessively. I felt both fascination (look at how that stovetop pops out of the counter!) and a nagging emptiness. Some van life profiles seemed designed to make me feel small. I scrolled through endless variations of the same carefully staged, barely-messy bed, billowing linen curtains framing a bright blue ocean and craggy rocks. The captions were always: “Just another Tuesday morning” or “This is what happens when you take a leap and follow your dreams [star emoji] [leaf emoji] [globe emoji].” Some of the emptiness arrived because I was bringing my own insecurities to the viewing–I was sitting on a couch during COVID, bored out of my skull, desperately wanting the type of freedom that these women (always women, always gorgeous) seemed to be peddling. She is free and fun. I am trapped and bored, and therefore boring. But there’s something broken at the heart of carefully curating your life, which is, of course, the very essence of Instagram. I think when you’re living an alternative lifestyle that’s viewed as aspirational and often requires a high level of privilege, both of which usually apply to van life, that curation becomes even more damaging. Now that I had a van, now that I was living a life vaguely similar to the images of lives I’d been pining over for a year, I wanted to be careful about what I showed the world. I wanted to share my experience, but not in a way that made other people–many of whom I loved–feel small.

I’m not sure how well I’ve done so far. When I look at my page, I see a couple of carefully edited pictures of me smiling at breweries. I’m stomping around a basin in Montana with my little sister. Robby is feeding a slice of apple to our fluffy little dog, who watches him adoringly with wildflowers in the background. I’m in a denim jacket, barreling toward a little chapel that sits at the foot of Montana’s Lone Mountain.

The captions and stories (which are videos posted on Instagram)  are a little better. There’s one that references a fight I had with Robby, there’s one about the evening I broke down when I felt like I couldn’t be in the van for another second. But there isn’t much balance. There aren’t pictures of me huddled in the parking lot of a mysteriously located Walmart, an image that would be emblematic of living in a van. 

Part of this lack of balance is logistical. I can take a picture of a mountain; I can’t take a picture of a fight. I’m also not trained to think of taking a picture of the mundane things, the boring or hard things. On this particular night, when I did survey the trash and think, maybe I should take a picture of this, I realized that my phone was at the bottom of a bag full of groceries. I was too tired to fish it out.

Yesterday, one of my best friends called to say hello. “Your life looks incredible,” she told me. “The pictures you’re posting are gorgeous.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. Many aspects of my new life were incredible. I was going places and doing things that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. I could live anywhere I wanted. Moving into a van had been more fun and rewarding than I had allowed myself to estimate. But doing so required sacrificing space, community, and often sanity. There’s much about it that is not enviable, and I wasn’t sharing those aspects.  

I wiped the cooler down, restocked it with fresh groceries and ice, tidied the parking space I had commandeered, and went into the van. I took several deep breaths. When Robby came back, we took Charlie on a walk around the parking lot.

“I don’t like the van today,” I said.

“No?”

“No.”

He took my hand. We kept walking.

“How was the Walmart bathroom?” I asked, half-jokingly, to break the silence.

“I had to leave immediately,” he said.

“Why?”

“There was a man masturbating in the stall next to me.”

I let out an involuntary chuckle. “Seriously?”

“Either that, or he was really enjoying taking a shit.”

“Should we find another bathroom? Do you want to walk into that Home Depot or something?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll just go in the morning.”

Charlie scampered under a shrub and circled the trunk multiple times, sniffing intently.

“I’m sorry a man was masturbating in the stall next to you,” I said after a minute.

Robby shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said. “He probably has a really tough life.”

I nodded, appreciating his empathy. I may not have been as generous.

We walked a little further. Our van lurked in the distance, messy, waiting. I decided that some days were just going to be like this. The butter would melt, the van would feel microscopic, the people of Walmart would masturbate in the bathroom. We’d exist in a bewildering haze.

“Robby,” I said, “what state are we in?”

He looked around and squinted, as if the name of the state were written in the sky surrounding the parking lot.

“Kentucky, maybe?” he said.

“Maybe.”

The moon had come up, but was barely visible behind a thick cloud. We turned and walked back to the van.

On July 15, 2021, Robby and I eased a camper van over the crooked lip of our driveway and drove away from home. Or rather, we drove our new home away from our house. The van named Wilma contained a bed, sink, composting toilet, and refrigerator. There were cabinets, drawers, a little study nook with a desk, solar panels on the roof, stick-on linoleum tiles, and the palpable absence of our five-year-old dog, Wiley. We had to put him down twenty-four hours prior. Our long-awaited sendoff felt hurried, tragic, and incomplete. 

Three and a half years ago, Wiley (formerly Orion) developed a limp. He stopped putting his full weight on his left front paw, often holding it daintily out in front of him, as someone might hold a teacup. Through X-rays, the vet surmised that the cause was some sort of bone injury and prescribed pain pills. One year, a worsening limp, and more X-rays later, it was determined that one of his toes was now warped beyond repair and had to be removed. Cue biopsy, surgery, more scans, more pills. Though the vet, surgeon, and radiologist were now sure this was the work of an autoimmune disease or cancer, no one could decipher the specific cause. Wiley just got worse.

Wiley developed an aggressive streak. This dog, who had never so much as glared at a human being, started lunging and snapping. A few times, he bit people’s thighs. We took him to a trainer who taught us about “fear biting” and gave us tools to help Wiley feel safe and calm. While we did see improvements, the trust had vanished. How long would it take before we could have people over without worry? What would happen if we left the room for a moment? What if he hurt a child? The dangerous behavior had descended over the course of a couple months, and we were bewildered. One thing, however, was clear to the trainer, the vet, and us: the aggression was caused by physical pain.

A couple weeks before we left in the van, we took Wiley in for another X-ray checkup. We sensed he was in more pain than usual; he could now barely make it around the block and didn’t like to play if it required jumping. For two years, we had lessened his activity and given him pain pills. We wanted to check the progress of his bones and ensure he was on the right medication. We were also open to discussing the possibility of amputation.

The vet was shocked by the X-rays. She turned off the light in the exam room to show us the images on a computer. The bones of Wiley’s left paw looked like a conjunction of poorly-built railroads. The vet pointed to the unnatural angles, the fused pieces, and, most terrifyingly, the bones that were missing.

“You see this area?” she said, dragging a long, immaculate fingernail around a black space the size of a nickel. “There used to be a bone here. It’s just gone.”

The computer glow lit up a series of labeled bone models on the counter. I looked at the foot, all the happy plastic pieces that clicked together like good teeth. 

Amputation requires three working legs, and while Wiley’s left leg was an obvious nightmare, his right was more quietly terrifying. It looked like a small creature had taken a round bite out of his elbow, and the X-ray was already showing some frayed bone-edges that were rampant in the left paw. The vet said that our next option would be to take him to specialists and do a bone tap to further narrow down the possible diseases (we were now down to three or four), and, though he would continue to experience discomfort, explore more intense pain management regimens. We agreed to send the X-rays off to radiologists, then went home. The vet would call us when she heard back later that week.

Within a day, we knew what we had to do. This dog couldn’t run, this dog couldn’t play, this dog had only two good legs. In many ways, this dog had been fundamentally changed by long term pain. We could spend the next year(s) and a small fortune chasing down a diagnosis and staving off the inevitable with pain pills, but one truth remained: the most advanced treatment would not bring his bones back. 

So, on a day that felt like hot, mosquito-ridden honey had been poured over the world, we put Wiley down in a patch of grass outside the veterinary office. He was happy to be with us, smiling and licking my thighs, which was where we placed his head for the end. When the vet injected the final, bubblegum-pink serum, he went slack but stayed warm. Robby and I were inconsolable. Orion-Wiley’s tongue jumped out of his mouth and curled upward, frozen in a kiss.

*

The van rumbled across the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, and I watched Wilmington over my shoulder: bright buildings lined the river like jars of candy. Then they were gone. Charlie, our white shih tzu I found on the street years ago, was curled in my lap. I wondered if he missed Wiley. I wondered if he had any inkling that we weren’t going back to the house, and if he was truly happy in the van, or simply happy with us. 

We bought Wilma in early May. We nearly wiped out our savings, sold our only car, and burned through the insurance settlement from Robby’s car accident two years ago. The 2019 Ram Promaster 2500 had been in our driveway and served as our sole mode of transportation for two months. Though we purchased it with the majority of the conversion already completed by the former owners, we used this time to make small improvements. We installed a swing-up counter extension, a swiveling Lagun table, and hung fairy lights around the perimeter of the living area. We frequently made breakfast inside of it: we’d slide open the door and I’d cook coffee and eggs on a one-burner camp stove while dog walkers did double-takes. 

A few times (embarrassingly few), we slept in it. We piled our dogs and ourselves on to the short queen mattress and opened the in-roof ceiling fan like a skylight. The mattress was comfortable, the muffled city-sounds pleasant. Moving around was tough–if I was at the sink and Robby needed something from the dresser behind me, we basically had to do cartwheels over each other–but we felt we’d get used to it. With the amount of money and hope we’d poured into this vehicle, “we’ll figure it out” seemed like the only good response to annoyances.

Still, I wondered if we’d all, little by little, come to hate this van. I imagine that’s what falling out of love feels like: small quirks morph from charming to grating. The choppy water pressure turns to Chinese water torture. The peeling linoleum tiles become dogeared to-do lists. 

It could happen. This could be the worst thing we’ve ever done. Moving from 966 square feet to 55 square feet will present challenges we haven’t predicted. Stress responses to a shift this drastic–both in space and lifestyle–could strain our marriage. Six months from now, we might sell the van, get an apartment, and pretend like this never happened.

If this adventure starts to go south, I think we’ll have learned something from Wiley. During times when his pain and aggression were in full swing, our love for him didn’t come from a place of carefree joy as it once had. It came from creating the best day we could, one day at a time. We loved him not by playing fetch or tearing through a creek together, but by wedging pain pills into pieces of hot dog, by carrying him the rest of the way on a walk, by calming him down when strangers walked by our porch. If we lose some of the bliss–either from van life or our relationship–I think we can find and show love by executing the little tasks. We can keep our space clean and our words kind.

Of course, I don’t think this is going to be the worst thing we’ve ever done. Though we’ve just started out and fully expect a long and rich series of blunders, Robby and I each seem to have an aptitude for living in a tiny, mobile space. I’m spontaneous, he’s efficient. Van life needs both. 

We’re in the Adirondacks now, parked on a corner between an antique store and a marina. The sky hangs low and smothers the hamlet like a gray blanket, but Wilma feels cozy. We’ve started a collection of postcards and photographs on the wall above the bed, and we’re leaving a space for a picture of Wiley. I like the idea of his face floating among all of the places we’ll see. 

We sent a friend to pick up his ashes for us. We’re going to find a place to scatter them. 

The social security office smelled like feet and bleach. Five rows of chairs faced the building’s entrance, which made walking into the lobby feel like walking on to a dingy stage. I checked in at a computer and sat down in the fourth row. I was here to change my name from Hannah Caroline Bridges to Hannah Caroline Bridges Horn. 

This decision was the culmination of dozens of conversations, journal entries, and minutes of staring at the ceiling before falling asleep. I still felt torn.

On one hand, I liked the idea of Robby and me sharing a name. I love sharing things in general, and both of us being Horns felt meaningful. I also knew that changing my name would make Robby extremely happy, though he wouldn’t admit how much.

But I loved the name Bridges. The word was meaningful and euphonic. Also, the name “Hannah” is already a little harsh (especially the way southerners say it, with a hard, almost nasally “a” sound), and putting it in front of “Horn” made each name a little sharper. I didn’t love the way the two sounded. 

Robby and I first discussed the name question around the time we got engaged. We were walking through Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

“How do you feel about me keeping my last name?” I asked.

I want to pause here, because based on conversations I’ve had on this subject, this question probably raises a red flag. This was not an asking-permission question; this was a your-feelings-matter-to-me question.

Robby sighed. “I’d be a little bummed,” he said, “but it’s your name.”

We were walking past the dog park. Clusters of dogs churned like little hurricanes.

After a while, he said, “I mean, what would our kids’ last names be?”

“If we ever had kids,” I said, “they could be Horns.”

“But then you’d have a different last name.”

“So?”

“Wouldn’t that be confusing?”

“Probably not. They’d know I was their mom.”

He was quiet for a long time. I half-joked that he should just change his name to Bridges, but then remembered that Robert Bridges is my dad’s name. We laughed, then didn’t fully revisit the issue for months.

During that time, I turned over every name-changing stone in my head. I read blog posts and articles about the merits of keeping vs. changing a name upon marriage. All of them had a slant. The ones that leaned toward a woman changing her last name built their arguments on religion, tradition, emotional closeness, convenience, or a combination thereof. The pieces that advocated for women keeping their names did so using feminism with a hard, shiny coating of self-righteousness. I did not find a single piece of writing from someone who couldn’t decide.

I researched the history of name changing. It started in Medieval England, which was later than I expected, and was linked to the idea of “coverture.” Once a woman got married, her legal existence was suspended and her husband made decisions regarding property, suing, executing wills, etc. The married couple legally existed as a single unit, and only one of them was allowed to call the shots. Essentially, marriage was a transfer of property (the woman) from her father to her husband, and the name change (which was legally required) signified that. 

None of this shocked me. I think most people have a sense of the historic relationship between marriage and property (the word “dowry” comes to mind), and I was exactly as repulsed as I expected to be.

But I didn’t feel that changing my name would necessarily be an anti-feminist choice. Feminism is about equality, and equality happens when women are empowered. There is immense cultural pressure for a woman to change her name upon marriage (and granted, I’m speaking particularly about straight, cisgendered couples here), which does cloud the decision for many people. I hadn’t yet been able to cut through the noise and have a moment of introspection to figure out what I wanted my name to be, but I believed it was possible. If someone genuinely felt empowered and excited to take her husband’s name, that was her call. Feminists who look down on that choice are missing the point.

I came to the conclusion that the tradition of a woman changing her name upon marriage had sexist origins (property transfer) and continues to be a sexist practice (because the reverse isn’t true—how many men that you know have taken their wives’ names?), but that a woman’s choice to partake in the tradition could be feminist.

I had mentioned my uncertainty to several people, all of whom were women, most of them straight, single, and around my age. The majority advised me to keep Bridges. I appreciated their opinions, but suspected that many of them would one day change their names with little thought. I think it’s easy to take the quintessentially feminist route when the cultural alternative isn’t currently glaring at you. There were also some women (mostly married and middle aged) who advised me to just change my name if I wasn’t dead-set on keeping it; they enjoyed sharing a name with their spouse. 

A few people suggested that Robby and I either hyphenate our last names or make up a new name entirely. I liked the latter idea, but Robby didn’t budge. He’s the final Horn in his family. What I did with my last name was up to me, but he was keeping his. I was annoyed and angered by the fact that the vast majority of men never had to think twice about whether or not they’d change their names one day, but I respected his decision.

*

During our engagement, I worked as a bartender at a brewery near downtown Atlanta. I was talking to a group of three customers, all men around my parents’ age. Business was slow. At some point, I mentioned that I was recently engaged, and we eventually got on the topic of name changing. 

“Not sure what I’m gonna do yet,” I said, polishing a glass. It wasn’t an invitation for advice; I was just musing.

“Listen,” said one of the men. He had a thick New York accent. “My wife never changed her name, and it always bothered me. For the ten years we were married, she had one foot in the marriage, one foot out.”

I nodded, choosing not to point out that her feelings may have had to do with factors other than her name.

“When you make your decision,” he said, “just remember that one time an old guy in a bar told you that you should take your husband’s name.”

The only thing I gathered from the well-meaning women in my life and one random man at a bar where I worked was that everyone seemed to have an opinion about my name except for me. In the two years between the day Robby proposed and the moment I walked into the social security office, I had described my attitude toward my name as “indifferent.” I don’t know, I would tell people, I just don’t feel pulled to do either.

In hindsight, I cared deeply about my name; I just had trouble reconciling that I could feel both passion and uncertainty. The heartbreaking truth is that by the time my wedding day arrived, I felt disconnected from both Hannah Bridges and Hannah Horn. During the first months of marriage, the Name Question made me feel like I was clinging to a piece of driftwood between two ships. I had to swim toward one, but was uncertain of which. 

That analogy sounds dramatic, but there was something gently and eternally unsettling about not knowing my name. I would introduce myself as Hannah Horn, or say “Hannah Bridges” and then correct myself, or say, “Call me Hannah Horn since I just got married, but I might not end up officially changing it from Bridges. I don’t know. I’ll respond to either.” This is a disturbing symptom of the endless confusion that comes with being a woman in America. What was once the most simple and irrefutable fact of my existence was now up for debate. 

My ticket number came on the TV screen at the social security office. I walked up to a kiosk, made “Bridges” a second middle name and “Horn” a last name, and went home. 

I told Robby that night. I brought out champagne. I was going to surprise him with my social security card—he didn’t know  that I had decided on officially changing my name—but the card would take three weeks to arrive in the mail, and I couldn’t wait that long. When I told him, he teared up a little and we held each other on the couch for a long time.

*

I made a new email with the name “Horn,” changed my social media profiles to “Hannah Bridges Horn,” and started introducing myself with my new last name. I figured if I started acting like it was my name, the little bubbles of uncertainty would subside.

Still, I kept finding reasons to not change the name on my license, bank account, and passport. I used air travel as an excuse (“I’d have to pay to change the name on my ticket”), then COVID (“Is the DMV even open?”), but eventually had to admit that I was dragging my feet. Horn didn’t feel right, but Bridges didn’t really, either.

“Buddy,” Robby told me, “just do what makes you happy.” It had been three years since our conversation at Piedmont Park. I think that Robby’s opinion on the matter had evolved from “I’d love for you to be a Horn, but it’s your call” in part because he witnessed the stress the decision put on me. He and I both understood that what we were called and our commitment to our marriage were separate things.

“I wish I knew what felt right,” I told him. “I just want a single moment of clarity.”

*

Two days ago, on June 27th, I went to Fort Fisher, a beach near Wilmington that wraps around a point. The beach is separated from the road by a barrier of boulders. I climbed over the rocks, spread out a blanket, and took a few books out of my bag. It was the two year anniversary of my little brother’s death, and I had come here to mourn and think.

One of the books I brought was called Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The book is sixty pages and the size of my hand. It’s a letter to the author’s friend, who had asked the author how to raise her child feminist. I had read it years ago and couldn’t recall much of it, but remembered it being an easy, soothing read. I opened it and leaned against a boulder. In between chapters, I swam in the ocean and thought about Stewart. 

The day felt light. Usually, Stewart’s birthday and the anniversary of his passing take slogging through, but I approached this day with a sense of purpose. I thought about how much I missed him, about where he was, about whether he could hear me. The Atlantic makes me feel closer to him because it touches Liberia, where Stewart was born, died, and is buried. 

I returned from the ocean and read a paragraph from Adichie’s seventh suggestion, which referred to marriage. It said:

The truth is that I have not kept my name because I am successful. Had I not had the good fortune to be published and widely read, I would still have kept my name. I have kept my name because it is my name. I have kept my name because I like my name.

There are people who say “Well, your name is also about patriarchy because it is your father’s name.” Indeed. But the point is simply this: Whether it came from my father or from the moon, it is the name that I have had since I was born, the name with which I traveled my life’s milestones, the name I have answered to since that first day I went to kindergarten on a hazy morning and my teacher said, “Answer ‘present’ if you hear your name. Number one: Adichie!”

Something inside me lit up. It was powered by thoughts about my brother and my family and my long-standing yearning for clarity. I wanted to be Hannah Bridges simply because it was my name. Phonetics and culture and feminst theory aside, it was what I had been called for my whole life, and I liked it. For the first time in two years, my name felt right.

I told Robby when I got home. He smiled.

“I’m glad you made a decision, buddy,” he said. “I know that was weighing on you.” 

I told him I wanted to make Horn a middle name. I asked if he’d be willing to make Bridges one of his middle names. He said he would.

*

From the day Robby proposed, it took me 765 days to decide to change my name. It took me 163 days to decide to change it back. I’ve heard of a couple women who initially kept their names and then switched to their husband’s names later in the marriage, but I had never heard of someone changing their name, then taking their maiden name back. I worried what people would think. Would they assume that Robby and I were having serious problems? That I had “one foot out” of the marriage? That we were separating?

I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter. I managed to do something rare: I carved out a moment where I could hear what I really needed. It took a long time, but the process reacquainted me with a truth that I frequently forget: I’m allowed to change my mind. I am always able to change my mind.

Image Credits

Wedding Photos, Blue Bend Photography

“Rocks protect Fort Fisher,” carolinabeach.com

The donkey’s face was hard and gray against my palm. I stooped down, snatched a fistful of clovers, and held them out to her. Her lips flapped across my palm like wet wings.

“I’m getting married today,” I said aloud. The one large eye that pointed my way blinked, then stared blankly past my shoulder. I grabbed more clovers. Continue reading

One thing with which I’ve had to come to grips about myself is that I’m vulnerable when convenient. The aspects of my life that I approach with vulnerability rarely have any real shame attached; I can often contort them into some clever quip or Instagram post. For example, I can be “vulnerable” about frustrations surrounding my broken foot, since the breakage was funny and parts of the recovery are funny and the whole thing is pretty much out of my control. Continue reading