Life-changing moments

There are no mistakes, only choices.

 

I don't know...

I dropped out of school for a short while...which lead me to get a job doing research in the hospital...that lead to a bunch of fantastic opportunities and where I am today. At the time I thought I was a failure, stupid, and lazy....turns out it was the best thing I could do.

 

I got pregnant when I was 18. That was certainly a big change of plans. I never want to think of my son as a mistake though. He has turned out wonderfully.

My aunt who encouraged me to get an abortion when I was pregnant with him was a guest at his wedding last Fall. I found that very ironic.

I certainly 'paid the price' for this in a lot of ways but I am very proud that my son has never felt like I didn't want him or that he wasn't loved. He's great and he doesn't lack in self-confidence.

 

Taking Art History in high school really was the catalyst towards my appreciation for art in general, and since art is fairly holistic - I formed a fairly deep passion for all things relevant. Prior to that, I always thought of myself as an archetypal nerdy-type person (I was President of the Robotics and Chess Clubs) and I really pigeonholed myself into believing I couldn't break from that mold. It was only until recently, did I discover that there doesn't exist any mold that you have to conform to and that you can find passion anywhere if you keep an open mind.

 

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

 

I was walking in my neighborhood and listening to the I Am Sam soundtrack- this boy in my neighborhood was in his drive way unloading band equipment and introduced himself to me. His name was Myk. We ended up having crushes on each other which never really amounted to anything, but he was really into punk rock. He got me into the music and he was the first person I smoked pot with. One time when we were on the bus, this other guy got on who knew my friend Myk, and we ended up talking and having a really great conversation. I was really high and thought he was super short but very interesting. Myk and I got off the bus and said goodbye to his friend.

During this time I was hanging out with Myk a lot, and skipping school to hangout with him and smoke pot. Eventually I got drunk at school with some other punk rockers, and when I went to my dad's office he could tell right away. I had to transfer schools and was never allowed to hang out with Myk again. You could say me hanging out with Myk was a huge mistake. I was completely alone and alienated by living in the burbs. All of my old friends disappeared, and it sucked.



But, in my new art class, I met this girl who told me her brother knew me. She said she described me to him, and that he said he had met me on the bus- I couldn't remember him. A few weeks later when I went walking to the grocery store, she drove by with her mother, and pointed me out to her mother and said, "One day that girl is going to date my brother."

Eventually her brother and I reconnected and became friends on myspace, this culminated in occasionally hanging out a few times over the course of a year or two. We both briefly dated other people, and then when we were single again we both started hanging out. My boyfriend told me that he thought I was the prettiest girl that he had ever met, and that he always wanted to run into me again, and when his sister was describing me to him, he knew it was me right away and was super excited. When he came to my house for the first time, I was so surprised because he was much taller than I remembered.

Because I was on the bus with my friend Myk I was able to meet my long time boyfriend that I love very much! Myk passed away about two years ago from a drug overdose. I am so glad that I met Myk. If he hadn't introduced himself, I don't know what my life would have been like.

 

I died once, that was pretty life changing.

 

Come on, you can't say that and not give any details.

 

*sighs* ... Life Changing Moments. ... I have WAY too many!!! LOL!

I'll share a very early one that's cute. I was 5 I think. I went to the store with my mom who on occasion would let me explore the arts and crafts isle (which was my favorite in this store). She never would buy me anything though but I was allowed to look. But one day, I just decided to take what I wanted. I was wearing a jacket at the time. It was brown and had pockets that opened at the top. And I put all sorts of things in these pockets. I remember lots of glitter. But I probably grabbed stickers and other things because I remember the pockets were seriously bulging and for some odd reason .. I thought she wouldn't notice. So my mom comes back to go and I walk out of the store with her and we hadn't made it to the car yet and she noticed. She grabbed my arm and yanked it up really high and started hollering, "What is this?!" and with her other hand she grabbed a few of the items and held them in my face and yelled more, "What is this?! Did you take this?!" shit like that. And she grabbed my by my jacket and started to head back to the store and I squirmed around for her to let me go. But she wouldn't let go and told me that I was going to go in that store and give back what I took and apologized. I was so upset! hahaha.

She marched me right up to that counter and told the woman, "My daughter has something to tell you" and then she looked at me. And I remember the look on the lady's face (probably was like, wtf and confused! lol!), and I was SOOOO EMBARRASSED!!! Anyways. I put everything I took on the counter and barely reaching my nose over the counter because I was 5 I murmured. "I'm sorry". Of course my mom was crazy pissed and I apparently didn't say it loud enough so I shouted. I'm sorry! and the people around us started to look to see what was up. I was so embarrassed and it seriously upset me bad. I NEVER STOLE AGAIN! ... In high school 2 girls I was friends with spent nearly a year collecting this huge wardrobe from shop lifting. They were cheerleaders and "good girls" too. But, in the area I live in, most of the families were well off so it was more about fitting in than the stealing. I didn't dare ... I just dealt with the fact I didn't have as many clothes and things as everyone else. There was and is, NO WAY I will EVER steal. EVER. omg .. that memory sends shutters down my spine whenever I go back to it. I think I probably got in major trouble when I got home too but I only remember that part.

 

Since no one knows what the future holds, and we live our lives and make decisions in the moment, how can one say for sure any one moment changed their lives? Perhaps you would be exactly where you are now no matter the decision made at any given moment in the past.
Unless you were seconds away from being run over by a trian and somenone pushed you out of the way.
That indeed would be lfe changing. Then again, your being alive wouldn't be the result of a decision you made in that moment.

 

Yeah, I was kinda being a story-tease there. Long story short, I contracted a virus which got worse, to the point where I was on the critical list. I flatlined for a minute, but was brought back. You're not officially dead until you're brain shuts down, so I was only partially dead.

That period of time in the hospital fucked me up pretty bad, both physically and mentally.

 

I understand what you're saying and in some circumstances I think you a probably right but I know that my life would have been different if I hadn't gotten pregnant at 18. I would have gone to University at the time like I planned and I wouldn't have married the man I did, therefore my second son wouldn't have been born exactly as the person he is (obviously my first wouldn't have either). I also ended up in the field of work I am in mostly because it was the best one for me to be in and still be able to raise my kids so I think I would have been in a different field of work altogether also. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my life would have been different. Not completely different of course, because my mother would have still been very sick and I would still have felt compelled to be there for my parents. I feel like things were meant to be this way (true or not it helps to think that way). At times I have felt almost like things happened this way because it meant that I could be there for my parents when they needed me since I ended up working for them as opposed to if I had gone off to school and a different career which would have made it much more difficult for me to help them.

I really feel that if my life had gone a different way I would be a different person. Obviously not a completely different person, but I feel that who I am today is in great part to the very particular life-lessons that I have had to learn. I can clearly look back and see the path of my growth through how I reacted to every event outside of my control and to every decision I made as a reaction to those events. Something as simple as volunteering to be the president of a professional women's service group for 3 years had a great impact on how my life is today. Even moving to a different town instead of the one we had originally planned, since I joined local organizations and met people here that are now part of my life and have influenced me.

I definitely believe in life-changing moments.

 

Thank you for elaborating.

Thank God for modern medicine!

That type of experience can really shake you up obviously. I believe that profound experiences like that change who you are and how you feel about things. My husband almost died in a work related accident and it really messed with his mind. He figured he would miss fishing so he was going to fit in as much fishing as he can before he dies.

 

Life changing moments...

When I was 12, I moved to a foreign country. I didn't speak the language, even though language had always been my only defense. Life suddenly turned into mute observing behind a glass wall. Everything was strange, a sensory overload. I stood, eyes wide open. People's cruelty and kindness both affected me deeply in ways they possibly couldn't fathom.

I haven't felt that alone, scared and alive since. The moment remains to be my psychological crossroad decades after.

 

I believed 100% in highschool that the female friend I had was the woman of my life. I confessed how I felt to her and she had the same feelings but she was already too involved with her fiancee (wedding plans etc.). I learned from that moment that life means often big loss and traumatic pain. At the same time I left a destructive religious cult.... life would never be the same again. I had no friends anymore outside of the cult and couldn't even go back to the old ones as my time in the cult changed me so much. Life became serious and I was often wondering about death and pain. I suffered hugely with the depression, anxiety and panic attacks.... all this led me to go into counselling and eventually become a counsellor myself.