stuff i'm doing: changing my name

so the name change is something i've wanted to do for a long time. i've never felt my old name suited me at all and was never comfortable being identified by a label my bio-family created. in order to shed one name, though, you must adopt a new one. many months of searching baby name books and name dictionaries, making shortlists, asking friends' opinions, and meditating, later i picked something i like (which i'll not be putting up on a public forum). at the spring equinox we had a little ceremony with my real family where they formally renamed me and i've been going by my new name (at least informally) ever since. i went to the vital stats office a week or so ago and got the paperwork, which is not nearly as complicated as i thought it would be. i need to find my birth certificate somewhere in the pile of important paperwork on my bookshelf and go get fingerprinted at the cop shop. after that it's about $200 in fees and we can start the annoyance that is changing over all my id and accounts. right now i'm in this strange hinterland of being known conversationally as one name and officially as another. i decide how to introduce myself by how proffesional my relationship is to that person but it feels really wrong to use my old name now. i'm also getting really tired of explaining to people "yes my id says that but please call me this as i'm changing my name". that inevitably leads to the "oh really? why would you do that?" conversation which is really none of their business, or, if it's someone i've known for a while, the "oh you'll always be XXXX to me" conversation in which i try hard not to hit them, or the "so is the change going to be legal?" conversation which is also none of their business and a crappy reason to not respect someone's life choices. i'll be happy when all of this is finished.