Bad, the first time I had a panic attack. It was like the end of innocent childhood and the beginning of how frightening, uncertain and out of control life can be.
Good, a “religious experience” (sorry to witness outside of GD ). I had been living a life outside of what I considered moral, with all the rationalizations that entailed, and one day I was given the inspriation to do the right thing again, to follow the right path. The joy and energy of that hasn’t left me yet and I’m so happy I was given that gift.
I’m stil waiting for the day when I am able to take a real risk and “follow my heart” without planning every step…
The best day of my life is without question the day I found out I was pregnant with my son. I had been raped by a “friend” in November and had been really depressed and feeling like there was nothing left for me in life. I was scared of everything, I didn’t want to leave the house, all I did was sit in my room with the lights out crying. Well, then in January I found out I was pregnant. It was like I was offered a second chance. It was everything I always wanted but had given up on. And even though my family talked to me about aborting him because they felt he would be a painful living reminder of the rape, I kept him. All I could think was this is part of me, this is MY CHILD! My son turns three on Sunday and I have NEVER regretted the way he came into my life or the fact that he’s in my life. He’s made my life wonderful and turned my world around. I ended up getting married in December after he was born so now he has a Daddy who adores him, a little sister who adores him and a safe home far away from the horrible night of his conception.
The day that changed me was the day I stood beside the crumbled car that killed my brother.
Suddenly I became an adult. I’ll never forget that moment and how the rain spat like ice and gathering the items one by one from the car. He had been camping…
I actually haven’t really dealt with this yet. It was 2 years ago, I guess I should start talking about this one of these days…
Back when I was growing up, I had a knack for math and science, so everyone told me that I should either be a doctor or an engineer. My parents wanted me to be a doctor, so naturally, I wanted to be an engineer.
I went to a summer program for high schoolers who were interested in engineering. If those three weeks taught me anything, it was that engineering was not for me. One afternoon, in the middle of an excruciatingly dull lecture, I turned to the person next to me and said, “You know what? I’m going to be a doctor.”
The day I sat in a hospital room with my beloved parents and heard the physician tell us that my mother was going to die.
I didn’t realize it, but I guess I never thought that either of my parents would ever leave me. I moved home to care for my mom, and bonded with her in a way that I never would have thought possible. She is no longer a physical presence in my life, but she is with me every moment of my existance.
My life has changed since then. My father is my main priority, not only because I love him, but because my mom entrusted his well being to me.
Well, I’ve had a very short life. But there was one moment…
Sept 3, 1998. It was my 16th B-day. I had driven down to Las Vegas with my mother and my sisters in order to meet Slacker_97. Someone I met in Yahoo! Chat who I was completely infatuated with. I met him at the airport. I walked up to him, and gave him a hug
That was just the first hug of many…as a matter of fact, I’m going to go give him one right now.
Another one, when I was 8, and in second grade. I knew how to read, I learned when I was 4 before I started school. But I refused to do it. I just would not read. I drove Ms. Hupp and Mrs. Jones crazy. But when I was in 2nd Grade, my teacher, Mrs. Ruf took me to the library, and handed me “Ramona Quimby Age 8” She said, “I know you can read this. It’s not a picture book. Tell me what you think.”
It had 108 pages and took me about 1 week and 1/2. But I absolutely loved it. And that was all she wrote. By the time I was in 3rd Grade I read “Gone With the Wind”. And I have never looked back. I’m very happy she figured out what to do with me, because my reading and writing has enriched my life.
When I was 8, I adopted a set of beliefs and behavior codes that constituted what I thought of as “adult behavior”: I would not get into fights with other boys, I would take serious things seriously, I would be as well-behaved as an adult, and in this way I would earn the respect of adults and be treated as an equal. That definitely changed my life forever!
When I was 14, I re-evaluated: I decided adults in general did not have so much going for them after all, and realized that I had become a really annoying know-it-all who had to be RIGHT all the time. Became flower child, deciding that the only thing that matters is not harming anyone and stepping out of their way to avoid thwarting them, and letting everyone do their own thing. Discarded huge packets of judgmental beliefs about how people OUGHT to behave at this time, and developed very anarchistic beliefs about authority.
When I was 21, I re-evaluated again. I’d been avoiding discomfiting questions about my sexual orientation for which I, virgin that I was, had no answers, and had kept running into random violence that traumatized and frustrated me and made the belief-system I’d adopted at 14 increasingly insufficient. Became radical feminist, politically, and came out of the closet as a heterosexual sissy, personally, and embarked on a career as theorist.
When I was 32, I burned out, lost the edge and impetus to continue trying to have an effect on people and culture in any intentional manner. Retired, sort of. Stopped writing theory for the most part, and within 6 years even started taking jobs that had no socially redeeming value.
When I was 40, I re-evaluated and realized I still believed in most of what I had believed in 20 years ago, but had come to realize that most folks have to realize it for themselves, you can’t force-feed it to them. Placed more value on being a good person to folks I come into immediate contact with, and especially towards those who have chosen to have me in their life on an ongoing basis.