Repurposing and Rediscovering
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
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 pored 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.
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 in 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’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.
