Elise McInerney

Ever since I can remember, I have hated my surname.

McInerney, so nasal and so many consonants just banging up together.

In primary school, I would cringe through roll calls as teachers would fumble over it.

Elise McKinney, Elise McKernie, Elise McInerney.

In high school, when I'd stand in front of the mirror using my water bottle as a makeshift academy award,

I just couldn't stretch the fantasy far enough to imagine them ever calling out a name as inelegant as McInerney at the Oscars.

I've had to spell it out for countless receptionists and customer service representatives, and people I've been friends with for years will turn around and ask, how do you say your last name again?

And as I got older, my surname took on some additional baggage.

My parents divorced when I was 12, and my mother quite reasonably chose not to keep her ex-husband's surname.

And after the divorce, my relationship with my father deteriorated pretty quickly.

We had a lot of counseling during my teens, but nothing ever really got better.

As I got into my 20s, I found myself in a cycle of just never ending hurt where every cut just made it harder and harder to heal the damage done.

And so one day I made the really difficult decision to cease all contact with my dad.

And in doing so, I lost

my connection to my extended McInerney family too.

And so the name McInerney started to hurt a lot more than just my ears, but my heart a little bit too.

I felt set adrift and I had to figure out what it meant to have a name that linked me to a father and a family that I now didn't feel like I belonged to.

Shortly after I'd ceased contact with my dad, his 60th birthday was approaching.

And while I knew that I'd made the right and the necessary decision, it didn't make it easy in practice.

And I hadn't quite figured out what to do with big events and milestones like this.