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I was a bricklayer. It feels like ages ago - and it kinda was. After that, I’ve had many different jobs.

Looking back at our lives, it’s pretty amazing how much we’ve experienced and accomplished. Even if we’ve stayed in the same place doing the same job, we’ve seen, done, and learned so much.

It’s easy to miss. Easy to think:

“Is this it? I’ve made no progress.”

And maybe that’s true — if we only look at a short timeframe. But when we zoom out, when we take in the whole picture, it’s almost hard to believe how much we’ve been through.

There have been ups and downs, good days and bad days, laughter and sorrow.

Quite a ride, and the journey isn’t over yet.

And the best part? We all got the ticket for free.

Priceless!

By a convenience of dates, I can today count in exact months how long I’ve spent in each of three phases of my life:

1. A child, with my birth name: 216 months
2. An adult, still with my birth name: 98 month
3. An adult, now with my assumed name: 222 months

(I drew a pretty pie chart but a crash ate it.)

Or in other numbers: I’ve now spent ~70% of my adult life, or ~41% of my entire life, living by a name I chose for myself.

I used a deed poll to change my name. And nowadays – with several iterations of my personal documentation issued over the 18½ years I’ve been using my name – it doesn’t even come up any more, except when somebody observes “hey, that’s an unusual name you’ve got there!” I haven’t even looked at my deed poll in over a decade, for example. My name today is more well-established as the one I was given at birth was by the time I reached adulthood.

And so it occurred to me this weekend, while I was reimplementing FreeDeedPoll.org.uk: because I was born in Scotland, there’s no reason I can’t also get my name changed on the one remaining bit of documentation that still has my birth name: my birth certificate! Scottish law allows me to have this retroactively changed for a modest fee, which would result in a re-issued birth certificate that showed “Dan Q” (with my birth name included as an “also known as”).

I’m flip-flopping on whether I should. Want to see my pros/cons lists?

Pros:

• It’s the one last (changeable) thing that could reflect my actual name
• It feels a little weird nowadays when I bump into my old name (e.g. on my first degree certificate, which I had to dig out earlier this year for a job application)
• It’d be nice to understand the Scottish process, as (via FreeDeedPoll.org.uk) I end up helping lots of people to change their name

Cons:

• I don’t need it; I’ve got all the documentation I could ever need and much, much more in my name; it’ll probably make no material difference to my life
• It seems symbolically like a rejection of the past, or of my family, or of an attempt to rewrite history, all of which feel icky
• It’s not free!

I don’t know which way I’ll eventually fall on this. Considering how… inconsequential it’d be, either way, to my day-to-day life… it’s surprising how much of an itch it is, at the back of my brain!

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