J's Name

Don't think my mom has ever hung up on me, but she basically did last night. I was on the phone with her, and all was well until I heard a firetruck outside of our balcony window. I opened the blinds and yelled, "Hey, J, there's a firetruck across the street at the office!" My mom said, "Well, I'd better let you go. Bye." Click. The mere mention of J's name has always made me a bit weak in the knees, but it's never made me want to hang up on someone before. LOL

For those of you who know J, she has a VERY uncommon name that most people have never heard before, so all those years apart, I never heard her name mentioned except maybe once by my grandmother. She said, "Hey, remember your roommate J in college? Was she gay?" "Hmmm. Not sure about that, Grandma." LOL Now, she has been told that I am living with J, but no one has ever come right out and said to her that we are a couple. I imagine that since she made that remark, that she has figured it out. She is not a stupid person.

So back to J's name. It is as uncommon as the name "Cher." When you say, "Cher", everyone knows exactly who you are talking about. When I say "J", you know that I am talking about the one and only "J." You know how sometimes a person will see or hear a name from their past and recollect good or bad times? Well, I never saw or heard J's name in all those years except for that one time, and it kind of made me sad. I never bothered to look in stores for collectibles with her name on them; there were none. Believe me, if there had been, I would have bought them. There is not even an alternate way to spell her name, I don't think. I told J once that God gave her that special name because he made her just for me. I know that it has been a big hassle for her at times, but it has always been one of the beautiful things about her that I have loved. It really kind of pissed me off in the ceremony when the minister mispronounced her name. Had it not been our most special day, I would have corrected him. J says that he said it correctly after I said her name in my vows. I was too emotional to notice.

As for me, I have always hated my first name. It is nine letters long. I had to write it at the top of my papers in elementary school. So when we moved to a new school in fourth grade, I announced to my parents that I was now going by the nickname of my formal name because it only had four letters. I hope to one day change my last name to J's. That is not in our near future. There is only so much I should expect my girls to handle. But when we sign things like raffle tickets, we sign with the same last name. Legally it will probably not have any value, but it is what I have ALWAYS wanted, since I was 18 years old. I think J's dad would have eventually been okay with it. My parents and J's mom, however, will probably disown us, if they haven't by then! My dad already asked me awhile back what last name I was going to use. I would like to keep my name the way it is until one or both of the girls marry.