Fearful Tears

“Tears are words that need to be written.”
― Paulo Coelho

This is my story. It is not always a happy one, nor is it always sad. But, there are always tears.

When I was 17 years old, just a few weeks before my 18th birthday, I met the love of my life (at least, at that time). He stayed that person for me for a really, really long time. In some ways, he is still. I had two children with him; we have a history. But, after half a decade or so, the sad times were more prevalent, and the happy times were not so happy anymore. At that point, it was time for both of us to take our leave from the relationship. Tears were shed by both of us, but I don’t think either one of us did much looking back after that.

I was single for seven years. And, to be completely honest, they were some of the most successful years of my life, so far. I went back to school and graduated. I started a career. I even fought for a job I wanted, and I got it. Everything was right on track. I don’t remember too many tears during that time — unless stress took over.

When I was 33 years old, I met a man who I thought was the true love of  my life. He had many flaws, some that were not easy to overlook, but I did — who doesn’t have flaws, right? At the time, I was sitting at 300 or so pounds, and it felt really nice to meet a man who didn’t try to get into my pants or play some game with me. We only knew each other a couple of months before he proposed, and we married two days after our one year anniversary. Then, the flaws that each of us thought we could overlook started to come out. Everything changed, and every day, you could cut the tension in our house with a knife. We both know that one misstep could set off a blowup. Finally, we came to the tipping point, and we separated. The tears flowed every night for the first two weeks, but there is no going back now.

Now, I sit here at age 34, reflecting on the last 16 years of my life. I have loved one man, and I have tried to save one man. I love and continue to raise two wonderful children. I love my family, and mourn the loss of an important member of it. But, where am I in all of this?

I don’t have any identity anymore. I have been someone’s daughter, girlfriend, wife or mother for my entire adult life. I’m tired of the tears. I’m tired of holding onto a man because I feel like I don’t have any identity without him. I’m tired of the fear that I feel when I’m leaving a relationship. I’m done with all of it. I’m starting to realize that maybe the love of my life shouldn’t be another man. Maybe…just maybe…the love of my life should be me.

When you lose someone…

“Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

 

When you watch your little sister die, your world stops, especially when you’ve been pissing your life and health away for so long.

My sister passed away a month ago. She was 28 years old. She left behind two children, ages 6 and 9, and a husband who loved her very much. It still doesn’t seem real to me. 15 days in the hospital, and then she was gone. I was the last one to sit with her at the hospital. I was the last one to leave her graveside. I can’t believe she is really gone. My heart breaks over and over again every day when I wake up and realize all over again that she is gone.

Her death has really make me reassess my entire thought process on health, my weight, and my life. She died way too young, and yet I’m sitting here stuffing McDonald’s into my mouth, just inviting a heart attack or stroke into my 350+ pound body. How selfish can I be?

However, my sister is not the only person I lost in this last month. My marriage is also over. I left my husband of not even a year, because I realized that it was not healthy for me to stay in that relationship, and life is too short. That’s what I’ve really learned — life is too short, even if it is the longest thing we will ever do. I’ve been faced with my own mortality in the face of losing someone so close to me, and my life is too precious to waste it on someone who does nothing but make me feel terrible about myself.

So, what do I do now? Well, I’ll probably keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last week — I’ll just keep swimming, as Dory says. I swim every day for one hour. I just put my head down and paddle. Every stroke takes me further away from my ex-husband’s negativity and closer to the goal I promised my sister I would reach — a healthy weight and life.

And what happened over the last week? I’ve started to feel better. I have more energy. I’m not as hungry as I once was, and I have rediscovered my love of fresh food. My favorite meal so far? A seared tuna steak and a salad with fresh fruit, romaine lettuce and just a touch of poppyseed dressing. I am also a big fan of avocado, which I didn’t even realize I liked until recently. It is getting easier to get up and go to the Y every day, even if my muscles are a little sore. While I have not yet seen any difference in my appearance, I just feel better overall, so I know that something is working.

In the last month, I’ve lost someone who I loved, and someone who didn’t love me. Like I said, it has helped me to realize exactly what I need to do with the rest of my life, and I wish my sister was still here to see the change.

My sister is on the left, and my daughter is on the right.

 

 

 

 

Thankful for my fat

Everyone does a post about being thankful this time of year, right? Well, I’m thankful for my husband, my children, my family and that I am gainfully employed. But, I’m also thankful for my fat.

Why? That’s simple — I’m thankful for my fat because without it, I wouldn’t be as wise as I am now.

I know, I know…that sounds a little shallow. I basically mean that I wouldn’t have had all of these life lessons (some more poignant than others) without my girth.

Lesson 1) Sometimes love isn’t enough.

I met my ex-husband when I was 17 years old. When I was 17 years old, I weighed 140 pounds. We started dating, and after I turned 18 and graduated from high school, he proposed and two months later I got pregnant. He went off to boot camp and then training for the Marine Corps. We saw each other periodically during that time, but I was basically without him my entire pregnancy. I sat around depressed, hormones raging, and I ate A LOT. I gained over 70 pounds during the pregnancy. We got married in January 1999, and our son was born in April of that year.

Over our years of marriage there were a lot of hardships, a lot of yelling and screaming, some infidelity and a lot of lies. It wasn’t all on him, I was to blame too. I fell into a deep depression and started gaining and gaining. I topped out at 250 pounds. He wasn’t attracted to me physically anymore and neither of us were happy. So, we decided to separate and, later, divorce. All of this sad story is documented in my thesis, Call Me Tabs: The Making and Breaking of a Marine Corps Wife.

Lesson 2) Sticks and stones may break your bones, so you have to be too hard to break.

There isn’t a name you could call me now that would actually faze me. I have been called every fat slur in the book. I’m thankful for every bully, every hater, every person who rejected me because of how I look. Without my plump exterior, I wouldn’t have had a lot of run-ins with such a merry band of degenerates. I wouldn’t have thought up Tab-A-Lard on my own, nor would I have known you could make it into a song. Words can hurt — but after a while, you either have to make the decision to believe them or dismiss them. I’ve been down the path of believing them, and it isn’t pretty. So, I’ve learned that you have to be too hard to break. That’s kind of where I am now. Words don’t hurt me anymore. I use them to my advantage.

Lesson 3) Finding someone who supports you is so important.

My husband loves me. He loves me enough to make me feel comfortable with who I am as a fat woman. He loves me enough to rub my curves and enjoy my body, as well as my mind and spirit. He also loves me enough to make healthy changes with me, eat healthier with me and exercise with me. He loves me through all of it. If I want to change, he supports me. He supports my writing, he listens to me go on and on about my research and my love of fat activism. It’s odd because I almost feeling like finding a man as a fat woman was more rewarding than finding one as a thinner woman.  I know where we stand. I know that he isn’t hung up on how much I weigh or what the scale says. I don’t have to be perfect, even though he sometimes thinks I am.

All of these life lessons are thanks to my fat. I feel like my fat has almost been like a security blanket, a warm place to land when nothing seemed to be going right. Now, while I may let some of my fat go, I’ve made peace with the fact that I will always be a fat woman, though a lighter fat woman. Lol, no matter which way you slice it — fat is fat. Some of us just have a little more than others. We are real people with hopes and dreams, and despite what you may think, we’ve been judged enough to know what matters and what doesn’t. So, stare at that woman in the restaurant who orders a cheeseburger. Stare at that woman who is out with her thin husband. Stare at the woman watching her kids play in the park. It doesn’t matter. We’ve heard it all before. The lessons we learn through our fat stay with us, and they make us stronger.

Writing again…and not just here

After almost two years of barely using my creative writing prowess, I’m back to work. I had a feeling that I would want to sit back down to the keyboard once I wasn’t typing away as a journalist day after day.

Now that I’m writing web content for a robotics integrator, I’ve started to contemplate returning to my keyboard in the evenings. It’s an exciting idea.

For almost two years as a crime reporter, I had to sit down and write drudgery day after day. Now, don’t get me wrong — a lot of it could be interesting, and I became quite good at forming a story based on other people’s insights and quotes. However, after working eight hours a day putting 800-1600 words on a page, I had no want to continue to do it at home.

Now, I don’t have to write as much, and it is more editing work than original content. But, even when it is original content, it is very technical, and somehow that is easier for me.

 

A life erased

“I want to believe that memories, even sad and painful ones, should not be forgotten forever.”
― Natsuki Takaya

In 1998, I was 18, and I thought I’d met my soulmate. We got married in January 1999, moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina and spent the next six years learning how to hate.

Needless to say, the marriage did not work out. We lived in a little house on Tarawa Terrace II, a base housing complex that was part of Camp Lejeune. While I stayed home with our two children, he worked and did other extramarital activities.

The split came in November 2005. I packed up the kids and moved home to Ohio. At that point, it was time to drop the titles of wife and, even scarier, Marine Corps wife and start to learn who I was on my own.

I’d spent over half a decade being told not only who I should be, but also who I was. The choice to be whatever I wanted to be gave way to a couple of dead end jobs, a few bad decisions and some long nights.

I didn’t really hit my stride until college. To be perfectly blunt (and a little less humble than usual), I kicked college’s ass. I realized I was not just an academic – I was a pretty good writer too. I won several writing and academic awards while going to The Ohio State University. Then, graduation came, and it was time to leave campus and get a “real” job.

I happened into a job at my hometown newspaper. I worked as the crime reporter for almost a year, covering every kind of story imaginable. As that first year was coming to a close, I started to get itchy feet, and I wanted to see what else this career move had in store for me.

Where could I move? I figured maybe I would try to get a job as a reporter in Jacksonville, NC…the only other town I really knew. With a bit of luck, I landed a job as the crime reporter in Jacksonville, and I moved back to the town in August 2012, after being gone almost 7 years.

That brings me to right now, writing in my apartment tonight. I am leaving Jacksonville for the last time. While I have friends and family elsewhere in North Carolina, there is nothing left for me here. My ex-husband (and children’s father) lives in Arizona. All of our old friends have moved on. Even the little house on Tarawa Terrace II is gone – torn down to make way for better housing.

While there will still be a few articles lingering around with my name on them in the local paper…everything that was that old life, that Marine Corps life, is gone. It’s like I was never here before.

It’s an odd feeling.  It feels like that life is a gravestone in an old family graveyard after the family has passed on. There’s no one to visit it, no one remembers it, and it’s all grown up with weeds. Only the words on the gravestone tell the tale of those buried there and the secrets their lives contained.

I’m the only one left with the real memories of this place. And now, I’m putting those bad memories to rest as well. Jacksonville has helped me come full circle in my life.

There are parts of Jacksonville I will remember fondly, and others I will try to forget, but my memoir, Call Me Tabs: The Making and Breaking of a Marine Corps Wife, will always tell the tale of that life – a life that now seems far away and almost nonexistent.

Now, it’s time to turn the page and get on with my ever-changing life. 🙂