I mailed away a long paper trail of all my names today in the hopes of renewing my passport. My original passport was from my teenage years (oof, my feathered hair!) so I could take a choir trip to England. My second passport was shortly after my first marriage so we could honeymoon with my father-in-law and his partner in Dublin and Munich (oof, my crazy short hair, double chin and glasses!). The passport outlasted the marriage, but still expired last year. Since you need a passport for Canada these days and I may want to see Europe again sometime soon, Rich and I decided to renew our passports. While he only had to fill out a form and surrender his expired passport, I had to prove all the versions of me there were. I thought about only including my most recent marriage license, but knew I would be livid if the papers came back for further documentation so decided to out-paperwork them. I sent my birth certificate, my first marriage license, my divorce court order and my second marriage license.

Did you know you don't get a divorce license? If I ran the country I would make one. The only thing I have saying I got a divorce is the actual court order from our lawyer, signed by a judge, that says who gets what from the marriage and if we had kids and all the reasons for our divorce. And really, I don't feel that's the cable company's business if they want proof of my name change. But for the federal government, I figured they could know all that for the sake of getting my name corrected.

That's one of the few places left with my old married name on it. Looking at the lady in that photo it seems like another lifetime ago. Realistically, it was 20 pounds and some truly regrettable glasses ago. Dates are funny. Jeremy and I got married in July so he could have insurance when we went to Pennsic in August (not a good reason to get married, trust me). We then had our wedding celebration on August 29, 1998. Rich and his wife went to that wedding, even though it was his birthday. He's always been happy to share, even when it was his birthday with my wedding day to another man.

When I was flipping through our passports before sending them off, I noticed Rich had a stamp from October 22, 1999. He and Gabrielle went to Ireland and Wales that fall to meet some of his cousins and be tourists. Ten years after that he was in a hospital with me holding his newborn son. Life is funny.

I guess every day is an anniversary of something, maybe something that hasn't even happened yet.