And so I got married.

Since I returned from honeymoon, I have been going down the list of all the institutions that need to be notified of my name change – doctors, banks, credit card companies, local council, passport offices, etc. It is a truly bizarre feeling being called Mrs, and having to refer to my partner as “my husband”.

When I was a kid, I used to look forward to the day I would change my family name, as I hated Nakano. It felt so commonplace, too unsexy for words. I wanted a glamorous-sounding Eastern European name such as Kaparovsky or Barishnikov, but I never even came anywhere near having a Russian boyfriend. Strangely though, when I finally had to officially change my maiden name, I felt quite proprietorial over it. I guess the change is supposed to symbolise your leaving your family and entering the family tree of your husband. But there is no such thing as leaving the family that raised you, is there? Not really…?

Our honeymoon was in Brazil, where my family lives and I grew up. It was an experience that surprised me in more than one way. I had been anxious and apprehensive about how my parents would handle the arrival of a non-Oriental son-in-law who only spoke a smattering of Japanese words, but my mother managed to impress with her array of good English idiomatic expressions, and my dad – bless him – had been studying an English phrase book for days before we arrived. All in all everyone managed to say what they wanted in their own language, even though not everybody was always listening (lol!).

My parents smiled and laughed a lot and tried to play perfect hosts by either cooking for us (my mother is a great cook) or (over)feeding us at the best restaurants in each cuisine available in São Paulo. I was always well fed by my mother’s homecooking whenever I went home on a holiday, but three days into the holiday there would always be a mother-to-daughter lecture on what a failure in life I was, on how I wasn’t planning my life appropriately, nor looking after my health as I should. More often than not these lectures would end up as bitter rows.

This holiday was the first time my mother did not complain once about the lack of this and that in my life. I can’t remember ever seeing her so cheerful and contented, nor my dad. It made me realise how deadly important it was for them that I got married. For them, it means the end of their responsibility as my parents, as it were, and handing me over to the care of my husband.

My brother, who I had always thought of as being shy and not-so-outgoing, flew to the UK for only four days to attend the wedding representing my family, and “gave me away” in my father’s place. He met all my friends and my new in-laws, took tons of photos and seemed to be having a great time himself, blending in naturally with the crowd. God, my baby brother had grown! It has been decades since we last lived together. In my head he was still this little boy that needed Big Sister’s protection… Now the roles were reversed.

While in Brazil, my husband commented how my parents’ huge love for me was apparent in their every gesture. He grew up in a single parent household; his father walked out on the family when he was a child. I guess I always took everything family-related for granted – as one does – and never thought I had anything special others may not necessarily have.

On our last day, mum, dad and my brother drove us to São Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport to see us off. As we hugged and parted, my mum told me to be happy and look after my health. I saw her saying something in English to my husband as well. I was in a flood of tears as I went in through the departure gate and had only a blurry vision of the three of them waving at us. On airside, at the Dutyfree shop, I asked partner what my mum had said to him. “She said we are very happy to have you in our family. She said be happy with my daughter and come and visit us again soon.” I dissolved into tears again.

It was then I felt it – a gigantic hammer hitting me on the head. The sudden realisation of the enormousness of my family’s love for me floored me. I am loved, I am loved, I am loved! I had never until then felt so loved in any single moment, nor so intensely. The exhilaration made me choke. I had got  so used to being the undesirable Black Sheep all my life.

I didn’t appreciate my family as a child growing up in Brazil. I grew up ashamed of being of a minority ethnic group, miserable for being lower middle-class, confused about my religious beliefs and my roots, embarrassed about my parents’ heavily accented Portuguese and their pre-war Japan attitudes. I would have loved to discover I was found abandoned under a bridge and adopted – I felt so different from them. I guess I still am – different, that is. But you can’t choose the family you are born in. You’re stuck with them…for life, so you’d better make the best of it while you can.

My mother asked me three or four times what my new name would be, and I had to repeat it every time. I wondered if she was hoping I’d keep my maiden name as a middle name, so that I’d still have a nominal link to the original family. To be honest, the thought occurred to me too.

How can I grieve the loss of my family name, when I disliked it so much all my life. It’s pathetic.

As I walked the streets of my village town today with my Marriage Certificate in hand, visiting banks and doctors about my name change, I had a moment of suspended reality. It was like Spirit had pinched me from the ground with a pair of tweezers and whispered, “Does it really matter what your name is? Does it even matter if your first name is Chie or Maria or Natasha? At the end of the day you are spirit and you will return to Spirit when you leave this body and this earth. Now get on with it.”

I still feel a bit in limbo right now. Not quite able to let go of my family, and not yet able to embrace being Mrs Elliott fully. Part of me wants to run away and disappear into some remote mountain and be Ms No-Name-No-Job for a while. Part of me wants to depart from this world right now and become a free spirit again, not trapped in an earthly body.

Part of me wants to stay right here and savour the joy of being Mrs Me, the one who is loved. At last.