I am now.
If you’re talking about friends and family that you deal with face-to-face, I’d have to agree with you. You should never have to say, “Hey! Did you notice I haven’t been practicing my alphabet-belching (cracking my knuckles for rhythm and supplying fart-bass for a fuller-bodied sound) during meals anymore?” Believe me, they’ve noticed.
But on a message board like this, many people won’t notice such changes. If you and I were to get into a major pissing match, and then someone asked me a year later (or, to bring this back to Opal’s world, eight years later) whether you still insisted on working your webbed foot phobia into every damned platypus thread, I’d probably have no idea. I vaguely remember a thread from years ago that had me just hopping mad, but I have no idea who I was mad at.
Opal has the unique distinction of being mentioned in hundreds of threads, completely out of context, where she hasn’t participated and isn’t likely to. Darned near everyone on the SDMB has heard her name, whether they’ve interacted with her or not, just because of that overused “Hi, Opal” joke. I encountered her name within days of discovering the SDMB, but it was years before I really got a feeling for who she is, and that was because of a link to some artwork she was working on at the time.
This forum is called “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.” If someone wishes to share that she has, in some way, changed in a manner that she feels is significant, it seems like a perfectly reasonable use of the forum. MPSIMS is all about sharing things from your life: things that interest you, things that are meaningful or interesting to you even if they’re mundane and pointless to others. Why single out Opal for making threads about herself when everyone else does it here, too?
nm
ok. Didn’t Opal actually come up with the name for this forum?
I’ve got some old stereos that eh fell off the back of a truck, can you help me out here bud?
nope.
Hm, I thought you did.
Are you sure?
Have I told you lately that I love you?
Opal, I just wanted to say that I’m truly impressed with how you’ve handled yourself in this thread. I don’t know if I could’ve done nearly such a good job faced with some of the criticisms you have. Good show to prove you’ve really changed.
really, opal? with a straight face?
good god. how anyone can read the above post and still hand out the back pats and the “good shows” and “class acts” is beyond me. as i said before, i am glad for opal that she’s not the suicidal, self mutilating person she once was (i’m glad mostly for the benefit of her kid), but the obvious fishing for sympathy and the “who me?” reactions to being called out don’t really strike me as coming from a new and improved opal.
Opal, I’ve always liked you, and am glad you’re part of the community, and have a pleasant memory of getting to meet you once. I started going to DC Midnight (unfortunately, after you’d left town) on your recommendation, and loved it there. You and I otherwise haven’t interacted much, apart from my managing to say “Hi, Opal” in several different languages. 
Speaking as someone who incidentally got a lot of disrespect from some Dopers for sharing things about my own life… which I stopped doing years ago—and no one’s noticed or acknowledged that my posting style for all this time has become more socially acceptable. And that, as I’ve explained, the brief period when I posted stuff that got me attacked was when I was on a course of chemotherapy-type bad drugs that ruined my personality, and once the poison left my system, I’ve done as good as job of appearing “normal” and unobjectionable as the average Doper. As a great man once said: “The evil that [wo]men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
Speaking as someone whose childhood experienced considerable trauma from other people’s obsession with professional and school sports, I’ll back you up 100% on that. I don’t understand the urge of some individuals to mock you for something that was truly painful and scarring.
Speaking as a native Ohioan (whose childhood in Ohio traumatized her for various reasons), you have every right to feel what you feel and to talk about it. When I was little we had a huge horse chestnut tree in our front yard. Yep, “horse chestnut” was the name we used for it. All the kids used to collect them and polish them to a beautiful sheen and hoard them like gemstones. I remember how pleased I was as a native Ohioan that we had the only horse chestnut tree in the whole neighborhood.
Speaking as someone who’s very introverted, I love how outgoing you are and how you reach out to the community to connect and share with everyone. I could never do all the community activity that you take the initiative in so seemingly effortlessly. I’ve always been more of a GQ gal, and on the rare occasions I make a MPSIMS OP, they often get zero replies and sink like stones. Which has to do with why we haven’t interacted much over the years. I just want to encourage you to keep on being your awesome self, and if anyone doesn’t like it, the heck with 'em.
Opal, has you mom ever apologized for this behavior? Why do you still have a relationship with her?
We’ve moved beyond it and get along well now. When I had my son we both sort of made the decision to leave our past behind us and try to get along. No, she’s never apologized for the things she did when I was growing up, but she’s also never said “I love you” to me, yet I know that she does. I know that she regrets some things about the way she raised me, but she isn’t the kind of person who can very easily share emotion, so I don’t expect her to ever say anything about it.
I really value the relationship I’ve managed to find with my mom as an adult. I’m flying to Arizona next week to go to her 60th birthday party, in fact, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her.
Thanks for sharing 
I know there are people on the board who will always assume the worst motivations for everything I say or do, and all I can do about that is realize that if I met them in person, I’d probably not feel any need to gain their friendship or acceptance. In fact, it’s likely I’d actively dislike them and not want to spend any time in their presence anyway, if they’re that kind of person. They’re nothing special and so I don’t let their opinions get to me like I used to. I’ve made close friends on this board, and I enjoy interacting with the community in general, but I don’t think that there is anything inherently great about people just because they post here.
I’ve started reading GQ more recently, so maybe we’ll cross paths more in the future.
Because not wanting your kid to walk in front of the TV/talk when a game is on doesn’t constitute abuse. If a kid wants to be a smart ass and constantly duck down in front of the TV while walking back and forth instead of just leaving the room, that’s fine, but let’s not act like they’re victims of heinous abuse.
What I don’t understand is how being disallowed from walking in front of a tv set might eventually lead to someone later in life to foster a grudge against sports. Just because that’s what was on tv at the time? Well why stop there then, why shouldn’t the brand of tv also bear some accountability in your subconscious feelings of victimization? (For instance, feeling traumatized by brand names such as Magnavox®, etc.)
My mom has an extreme obsession with sports. This stuff only happened when she was watching sports (which was a lot of the time). As a result I disliked sports while I was growing up. I never had any reason to change my mind later. I’m not saying I have some obsessive repulsion for sports where I’ll freak out and have a seizure if sports are playing, I’m just explaining why I never developed any reason to want to watch them.
I liked you then, I like you now.
'Nuff said.
shrug When I met you several years ago at a Weirddave/GingerOfTheNorth Dopefest, I thought you a very charismatic, energetic woman who added a lot to the party. I haven’t paid much attention to these supposed flameouts on the Dope (though I’ll admit that the necklace clasp thread was kind of annoying). All-in-all, I’ve got no issues with you and I hope we meet again someday.
Thank you. And I don’t even remember a necklace clasp thread (no need to link to it–I don’t like dredging up the past). But then, my memory isn’t the greatest, as an understatement.