Repurposing and Rediscovery

I knew this girl once. She was funny and bright, with this crazy smile that looked like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

This girl focused on her career and every aspect of becoming a writer. She published anywhere she could. She loved getting the praise and awards for a job well done. No…she didn’t just love it. She craved it. She knew that it made her a better writer. Then, she graduated from college, and moved on to see her name in print every day as a journalist. She poured over her own stories and the stories of others to hone the craft of news writing and improve it, trying to become the best journalist she could be.

Her are some pictures of the girl from her college days:

See! Beautiful, suspicious, pensive and full of potential! And that first picture really shows the smile!

Then, that girl ceased to exist. Her light went out. She got into an all-consuming relationship with a man who would do everything in his power to build the girl’s confidence in herself — everything to make her crave his praise. She became addicted to it. Then, that man did everything is his power to kill that girl’s identity and squash her sense of self-worth, so she would be completely dependent on whatever praise or love he decided she deserved that day, week or month — which wasn’t much. And she stayed. Like everything else in her life, she tried to be the best wife she could be. She knew that he loved her and praised her every day before, and if she just tried a little harder, she could find that man again, and she would get her identity back.

That’s not the way it happened though. Down the rabbit hole the girl went, and she disappeared…for a long time. But, she is back today. Hello everyone…You can call me Tabs. 🙂

I have sat in my house for three weeks, talking to friends and family about the situation I have endured, and this morning, I’ve decided that it is time to start rediscovering my identity as a writer and repurposing my life. I used to be completely career-driven. Then, when I met my husband, my career didn’t seem important anymore. But, what I didn’t realize was that being a writer is who I am, and without that hunger to write, I feel empty. So, today I write again. It feels good to be back.

 

Tabs today – Oct. 4, 2014

See! She still has that smile!

 

Call Me Tabs

I am a writer.

I’ve loved writing, either reading it or writing it, as long as I can remember. I started writing blogs as early as 2003 on MySpace, and I’ve written poetry since I was 15 years old.

When I began my undergraduate degree at age 26, I was a History major. After my first English class (basically, English 101), my professor talked to me about my love for writing and asked why I wasn’t an English major.

That is what sparked everything. From there, I joined the school newspaper, where I became head writer and student editor. I was vice president of the campus writing club. I took 10 creative writing classes over my last three years of school. I won creative writing awards in Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry genres. I was even published in The Marine Corps Times, The Cornfield Review (five times), and even on The Ghazal Page under the name Tabitha Albright.

In December 2007, I decided that I wanted to pursue Honors coursework and graduate with an Honors degree. Part of that coursework was a senior honors thesis. My thesis, Call Me Tabs: The Making and Breaking of a Marine Corps Wife, is the best thing I’ve written so far in my life. It is a 128-page epistolary memoir about my life as a Marine Corps wife, and it gives the reader a view into a life that only a select group ever really get a chance to see.

After graduating with my B.A. in English, I decided to pursue my career options instead of going on to an MFA program. At the time, I was a single mother, and I didn’t have the luxury of signing up for an intensive program that wouldn’t give me enough money to raise my children.

I decided to become a journalist. I did that for a year and a half, working at two different papers with two different sized markets. It took me that 1.5 years to realize that journalism was not for me. Since my sister had taken ill, I decided to move back to Ohio, so I could be closer to my family.

Once I got here, I found another writing job — this time as a web content developer for a robotics company. After three months in an office environment, I was rotated out and made a subcontracted article writer. Now, I work from home, and I’m making fairly decent money doing it. Life couldn’t be more perfect, right?

Well yeah…except that one thing…

And no…for once, I don’t mean my weight. That one thing is the MFA-ghost that is still wafting around in my brain. I always wanted to get my MFA, and I feel like now, I actually have the means to go into the program wholeheartedly.

I know it’s going to be tough. I’m only applying to one school — the one school that has a viable MFA program in my area — and I know the acceptance rate is less than 10 percent. But, I have to try. I have to take the GRE. I have to revise my creative and critical essays. I have to write a personal statement. I have to apply. Otherwise, I’ll never know.

What better time in my life to do it, right?

Will I get in? Who knows. It is definitely going to be an uphill battle, and I don’t have a lot of cards in my hand. But, I have to do this.

Alright…take a deep breath: I think I’m going to make that plunge. 🙂

So, what are your thoughts on furthering education after the BA?

Why am I threatening?

“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

I am a big girl. I am a fat girl. I am a fat woman. It doesn’t really matter how you say it or slice it, I am. There is nothing in this world, no article of clothing, that I can put on and look like a size two. And, honestly, I’m okay with that. I wish I could more easily find clothing that fits, and I’d like to have a little more mobility and be a tad healthier, but beyond that — I’m happy with my life — all of it.

Now, my question is, why do people find that threatening? While I know that some people in my circle of family and close friends look at me with legitimate concern because they want me to stay around as long as possible, there are others who do not know me, but feel the need to give me advice…and some who feel downright threatened by my existence.

Is it because I’m unapologetic for being this weight? Is it because I am focused and accomplished? Is it because someone could be intelligent, accomplished and still be this weight? I think that might be part or all of it.

I don’t brag about myself often, but I’ve won awards, been published, and had a couple of jobs right out of college, one that I earned and two that I was offered. And now, I get to sit at home and write internet content. I get to sit at home, write and get paid for it — which has basically always been my dream. So, yes, some people may be threatened by my accomplishments because when they look at me, and see that I’m morbidly obese, they know that I break their stereotype, and that makes some people very nervous.

Stereotypically, as a fat woman, I should be less accomplished. I should be lazy. I should be weak-willed. Those who know me would laugh at those stereotypes. I don’t fit any of them. The best you can do is say that as a fat woman, I may eat too much fast food and not exercise enough. That’s about where my stereotypes end. I don’t like labels. I’m not a soup can. Don’t try to back me into a corner with your one idea of beautiful, with your one idea of accomplished. I’m likely to come blasting out of that corner with guns blazing and change your mind… and maybe the world.

A while back, a dear friend of mine made me realize that my focus had changed after college and after meeting my fiance. So, now I’m beginning to refocus. I can do it all. I can be a writer, a wife and a mother. There’s no reason I can’t. Women do it all the time, and many of those women are overweight or obese. So, I guess we’re all a little threatening.

I guess I could play on a little stereotype myself: I could assume that I am threatening to some people because they hate themselves. They are obsessed with everything they put in their mouths and their weight, and it is unnerving to see someone who is so overweight who doesn’t care as much as they do. That’s just a theory though.

So, what do you think? Are overweight and obese women who are successful or unapologetic threatening or inspiring? Can you aspire to be like someone who may not have the best body (according to the U.S. Health Department)? Can we still be role models without being pied pipers of fat to children?

A tale of two books

Well, well…we meet again!

I was digging through some of my old blogs that are sprinkled throughout the internet, and I realized that I have two Kindle books still available for purchase on Amazon!

So, if you’d like to read a little of my poetry, visit this page: Life’s Little Abstractions

Or, if you are more into short fiction, this might be more your speed: The Freak in All of Us: Tales of the Unconventional, Eccentric and Mad

 

I will have a new book coming out in the next year, but for now, these are my only two published collections.

If you are interested, feel free to help a writer fund her new project! 🙂

Starting over

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. -”
― Joseph Campbell

When I left for North Carolina in August 2012, I thought I’d never come back to Marion, Ohio. I actually bragged to people that I would never come back to this small town.

And now, 5 months later…I’m back.

While several people in the community are happy about my return, I’ve heard “so it didn’t work out in NC?” many times.

Did it work out in NC? Well, it could have, if I wanted to continue working at a job that drove me completely crazy. But, I wanted to be nearer to my family. I wanted to have my family in the same place where I grew up. So, we moved back.

And then, I saw the signs — Heroin is Marion’s Economy.

Apparently, a former drug user decided to make the signs as a way to draw attention to the heroin problem in Marion. But, to me, it just signified something that I’d thought for a long time — people with the potential to save this town either keep leaving or focus their attention elsewhere. Everyone seems to think that saving this community is someone else’s problem.

I want it to be my problem. I wanted to come back to look at Marion through rested eyes and see, not just as a journalist, but as a person, what the main problems are in this city. Heroin, as hard as it is for me to believe, is a major player here.

I’m not sure what to do or what to say. I’m not a leader, nor am I an activist, but I feel like as a writer, there is something I can do about the issues in this town….even if I just write about them. So, I’m going to devote a little blog space each week to the issues of my favorite community.

If those of us with the minds to help keep bailing out of this community, who is going to be left to make it better?

If anyone who reads this has ideas about ways to boost activism or urban renewal in small towns, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear some ideas.