Who am I?

I was born Lee Anthony Haynes. This was the first name I learned to print, back when I was in the first grade. My parents were no longer together by then. My mother married John Cazahous before I started the second grade. That was a new school and in a new town actually. I began using his name then. Five schools later I found myself ready to start high school. John was gone but his last name had been with me for what life I had lived. I stopped. I considered. I thought of my mother’s family who I have always felt closest to. I am Impeartrice. I know have always known that. The thing I considered doing the most was dropping my first name for my middle one and changing my last name to that family name. But there was already an Anthony Impeartrice that had come before me and an Anthony Impeartrice growing up fast behind me. I wanted a name that was mine alone.

That was something I was sure that I already had. I was sure to be the first, last and only Lee A. Cazahous. And it had the added bonus of being something I knew, something I was used to. So with little consultation I made that change permanent and with some help got the State of California to make it official. Lee Cazahous I had been known as. Lee Cazahous I was.

It has been nice to have a unique name. Though it always felt a little strange with people asked me where it came from and then I had to explain that it and I were from different backgrounds. My mother and my sister shared the name but I was the only one that had hijacked it. From the family I had done that from never once came any acknowledgment of my existence. That was fine with me. I didn’t miss them. But there was something that wasn’t quite right with this fit.

Of my own name and my own father, I wondered sometimes. I wondered if there were things that we were missing. Traits that we might share despite the lack of influence on each other’s lives. I tried not to dwell. After 35 years things like that just don’t change overnight.

But of course they did change overnight. I was discovered on the internet, on Facebook, of all things, by a father that I did not know. A father that was interested in me. A father who I seem to share little, but relate to nonetheless. This was the revelation of my early summer. It took awhile to set in but I have become comfortable with it. Happy even.

Next week I’m getting married. As it came time to apply for the license, I felt that pull to come to a decision again. Who am I? Did I really want to start a new family with a name that was feeling less and less like my own? Kelly and I talked about it. We talked about it a lot. In the end we decided that this was time to let go of my association with a family that really wasn’t mine. Lee A. Haynes I was born. Lee A. Haynes I would be again.

Next week we will step up as Lee Cazahous and Kelly Morrison but we will step down as Lee and Kelly Haynes. I wanted everyone to know. I’ve begun the transition at work and I’m going to start the transition online now. I wanted to put something up to go along with that to avoid too much confusion.

Thanks for everyone’s support and good wishes through all these changes.