Before/after transferring colleges.
I transferred after my first year and I learned a lot about myself in the process.
I still (7 years later) consider transferring the single best decision I’ve made in my life because of all of the subsequent decisions that it led to.
Before my mother died/after she died. I was 14.
Before I went to college/after I went to college
Before I moved to Seattle/ after the move
Before I got married/after I got married
Before my wife died/after she died
Before getting sober/life in recovery
There are several potential ones, but probably the major one (at this point in my life) is:
Before grad school/after grad school
Before the wheelchair/after the wheelchair
Though I’m only 21, and my biggest milestone may yet still be ahead of me, the current division is probably when my family moved from California to Virginia when I was 13. I had lived in CA my entire life and had an active social life. When we moved to Virginia, I felt alone. I was already introverted and shy, but since I always had those friends from childhood it never came up. But now I had to fend for myself in a completely new locale. I didn’t really fit in there and my social life all but disappeared. We moved back to CA two years later, but things had already changed too much. My old friends had transitioned to high school, and although we still got along, I was so used to being alone that I began to prefer it. Throughout most of high school I went through a thing where I felt lonely, yet at the same time preferred being alone. It was rather confusing, and I’m still recovering from it. Maybe the move didn’t really change me as much as bring traits of mine to the surface that had been dormant all that time. This will probably turn out to be more trivial as my life goes on, but for now it’s a pretty big division for me.
Before my sister left for college / After my sister left for college
(I was 16)
Before/After marriage #1
Before/After college
Before/After current hubbys’ deployment
Before/after England ('83-'85)
Before/after college ('89-'93)
Before/after moving to VA ('98-present)
And, I have a feeling that where I work is going to wind up being a before/after part of my life (both personally and professionally).
Hmm, interesting that I don’t feel this kind of divide about my parents’ divorce. I think maybe I lump it in with “before England,” even though it happened almost 2 years after.
before / after I started to learn Chinese
before / after getting married
before / after having my first daughter
before / after having twin girls
Before leaving Ohio / After leaving Ohio
(Wow, that’s stupidly vague, now that I reread it…)
Before my son died.
After my son died.
Before first flight lesson/after first flight lesson
Ditto.
To clarify, before deciding to fly and after deciding to fly.
I had flown before then and had also wanted to “be a pilot” but only in an abstract childhood dream kind of way. After I had been out of school for a year I stopped dreaming about it and started doing it. I went through a fairly marked change. Stopped doing any kind of illicit drugs, cut my hair, stopped hanging around with layabouts, got a job, got off the unemployment benefit, etc.
Before middle age / after middle age
At some point you can no longer pretend you’re 24.
Before I lost my house, and after I lost my house.
Ditto.
Before the war/After the war
Before getting married/After getting married
Before starting my business/after starting my business
September 2004 - September 2005 is going to be it for me.
In chronological order:
I got sober fighting with all my might for a better life.
I lost my job through no fault of my own.
My beautiful circa 1760 house was crushed by a giant 200+ year old oak tree during a storm. My oldest daughter was literally almost killed while asleep in her bedroom. Wood spears and giant beams dropped down all around her. The damage estimate is $200,000+ and we still can’t find a contractor willing to do it.
My 2nd daughter was born. Turns out, Sophie had one of the rarest genetic diseases in the world. We didn’t know it until she went into seizures during my birthday party. We stayed with Sophie in Children’s Hospital 24 hours a day for five weeks. She died on July 18th in my arms.
My home state of Louisiana and my university (Tulane) got destroyed. Countless friends and family are homeless and their lives destroyed.
I am completely jaded now and believe that the world is an evil place with a few islands of comfort. I only live day to day and hope that tomorrow be a temporary reprieve from disaster and destruction. I absolutely hate the world and am now capable of complete evil because of it. You can’t make long-term plans because they will be destroyed.
I prefer to think of things this way:
“Before Graduating High School” aka “The Jersey Years”
then,
“The College Years”
then
“The Air Force” (with minor subdivisions within)
That’s about it,tho. . .
Tripler
On the completely random sigline: I’ve got Dio on. “Holy Diver! You’ve been down too long in the midnight sea . . .”