24 Hours From Tulsa

[gauchecritic]

Walking home last night, slightly inhebriated, I was singing to myself, as is my wont, the above Gene Pitney song. I got to the line:

"Something happened, to me, while I was driving home and I'm not the same, any more."

This made me ponder.

This being lit. I thought it particularly apt re; character development, plot etc.

Life changing experiences. Apart from the inescapable ones, death of a near one, puberty, violence, birth; what simple things have made you re-think a situation or change your behaviour towards others?

Gauche

 

[Guest]

A Summer's Tale

Gauche: I have two that come to mind. If the first is too long, I’ll post the other later. When I was eight years old, on an ordinary hot and sunny summer day in Detroit I was in our backyard. I’ll presume I was at play, or wandering around looking at things—my father’s vegetable garden, my pet rabbit or dog, the chickens my father raised, the lilac bushes I loved, wild berry vines, toys my brothers and I scattered about. Yet all I vividly recall is that I stood still for a moment and the sunlight caught my arm so that I stopped to look at it intently. I held my forearm in front of me and it felt as if it were not real. I felt a bit frightened, really, but I stared more intensely at my dark skin (my brothers and I became very dark during summer), at the light hairs and the texture I had not noticed before, at the translucence of it in the bright daylight. Then I began imagining what lay beneath—my blood and muscles, the bones. I tried to realize something of it—my arm. I could not understand how it was connected to me. I could not understand how the bones and muscles were connected, how my skin and blood were connected, all of it connected—and to me alone.

That’s it. I came to no conclusion then, naturally, but decades later I recalled the moment and knew that I had come to consciousness, the way Joyce speaks of it. It was as if I had given birth to myself (something I continue to do at just such odd moments, even today). But at eight I recognized myself, for the first time, separate from the world, from my parents and brothers, from the place I stood in, from the garden and my rabbit. I knew, somehow, in my girl’s mind, that I was alone, alive, and that I had a soul.

Purr

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Without a doubt it was the birth of my first child. That is the one, definite border I can point to in my life: clear as a strip of neon, unambiguous, and radically different on the other side.

I went into the hospital as the person I knew, moving through a world I knew, and I came out a totally different person in a totally different world. I knew things would be different, but I really hadn't expected things to be so different.

Sometimes now I think that only parents should be allowed to vote.

---dr.M.

 

[TheEarl]

My favourite epiphany is one that I repeat at random times and which I have actually written a small vignette about.

What if I died? Would life just cease to be? Would it just be that, end of consciousness, end of everything? In that case death wouldn't be an issue cause I wouldn't be aware of it. Maybe this entire world isn't actually real and is just a figment of my imagination. Would it all blink out of existence as soon as I did? Would I be responsible for mass genocide? Presumably no-one would care cause none of them would exist either. But I'd be upset. Or would I because I wouldn't exist at the time. Maybe the entire world is just a figment of someone else's imagination? In that case, who is it? I must do everything I can to stop them from dying, otherwise I will cease to exist. They think, therefore I am.

Surrealist thinking is fun.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

a real downer

Forgive me for being explicit and not an upper.

I was sexually molested when I was three. Suddenly, people that I should have been able to trust were no longer trustworthy. And yet, they were the only ones that I didn't feel isolated from. The abuse was a sick connection.

I don't think I felt like the rest of the kids because everything took on sexual connotations.

Of course the repercussions extended further than the duration of the abuse and into many other relationships.

There are some things that cannot be taken back. And no matter how much therapy we experience, we are never the same.

b

 

[Guest]

Re: a real downer

Forgive me for being explicit and not an upper.

I understand this, but want to say it deepens the pain of my immediate response to think you felt the need to apologize.

There are some things that cannot be taken back. And no matter how much therapy we experience, we are never the same.

I respond now publicly, after some thoughtful time since you posted, inspired by your courage to write in public. This was not the second thing I intended to mention, but my thought after reading your last sentence was that perhaps only the grief of death might match the profundity of your experience.

My father died almost 46 years ago. It was the chief determining event in my life and that of my three brothers; we have since been united inestimably in that loss. In many banal ways I am 'over' it, but not fundamentally. There is no 'closure', there is no getting over it, no thorough 'moving on'. As the anniversary of his death approaches each year, a pall stills falls over me; at times I am not even aware that it has happened until the day itself. I think the fragments of my little girl's body recall it for me in the whole woman I am today.

Bridget, one of my sons was molested at five. The hour and day that he told me about it, when he was 22, added a new significance to my life, and our relationship. I grieve this still, nearly like the grief over losing my prince of a father. I grieve for you now.

I learned long ago, and many times over, that some things in life cannot be undone. What matters is what we do in the time to come.

Knowing you only by reading, Bridget, your kindness and sweetness give me faith that good can come from where we least expect it.

Bless you, Perdita

 

[Guest]

Gauche,

Despite the few responses to your uniquely interesting query, I think we few deserve to hear your own reply now. Please. (Of course be gauche and Yorkshire, but not too flippant, eh?)

affectionately, Purr

 

[MathGirl]

Life-changing experience

1).Falling in love and having that love returned.
2). Leaving home for college

Both those things happened when I was fourteen. Yes, yes, I know I was just a kid, but I'm still that to most people on here. Age makes no difference; both things set the course which I will follow for the rest of my life.
MG
Ps. I was quite precocious, you know.

 

[jfinn]

When I was seven my grandparents took me on a visit to relatives in Virginia. I know the trip only lasted a ten days, but there are so many vivid memories from that time it feels like it was half my childhood.

I met cousins I never knew I had and experienced a lifestyle I'd never imagined existed. The sleepy, soft ways of the Southern middle class. Noontime dinners and long nights on porches with homemade lemonade and laughter, listening quietly to the stories of adults and trying desperately to become invisable so they wouldn't send me to bed.

One of my cousins was just about my age. In the dusty little town where my great aunt and uncle lived was a drugstore that had a soda fountain and the boast that if they forgot to ask if you wanted another, you'd get the second banana split free. It was the most effective advertising ploy we'd ever encountered, so every afternoon we'd walk to the square with our two quarters each and we'd hope that this time they'd forget, though really neither of us could have eaten two of them anyway. Of course they never did.

On the last day we made our trek --only this time I had to go to the bathroom and whispered that fact to my cousin. Being eight and therefore much more sophisticated about these things, she told me not to worry then asked the pharmacist for the key to the lavatory.

It was outside. We walked around the corner of the building and found two doors. But it wasn't what I was used to, not the usual Ladies and Gentlemen. Instead there was one unpainted door, dilapitated and hanging ajar with a few fat flies slugglishly guarding the opening. I was little, what did I know, so I went to enter. My cousin stopped me.

She shook her head and pointed up at the painted sign over the doorjam. I could read and saw that it said Colored Women. I looked at her, puzzled. Nothing in my Pennsylvania childhood had taught me about situations like this. She grabbed my arm and pushed me forward. There I was faced with another door, tightly closed and painted bright green with a polished brass handle. Over it was another sign. White Ladies.

I'd like to tell you I was offended. That even then I knew this was absolutely wrong. I'd be lying. Because what I felt was proud. I had somehow achieved A list status. I was better than some people because I could go through that obviously superior door and they couldn't.

Of course later I realized that this was stupid and ignorant reasoning. That symbols don't define the worth of people and that no one should be judged by race, creed or any other of the arbitrary labels we all love to assign to them. But once, on a hot day in August I learned that I was not immune to the seductions of predjudice. I've tried very hard to never let that happen again.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: a real downer

I understand this, but want to say it deepens the pain of my immediate response to think you felt the need to apologize.


I respond now publicly, after some thoughtful time since you posted, inspired by your courage to write in public. This was not the second thing I intended to mention, but my thought after reading your last sentence was that perhaps only the grief of death might match the profundity of your experience.

My father died almost 46 years ago. It was the chief determining event in my life and that of my three brothers; we have since been united inestimably in that loss. In many banal ways I am 'over' it, but not fundamentally. There is no 'closure', there is no getting over it, no thorough 'moving on'. As the anniversary of his death approaches each year, a pall stills falls over me; at times I am not even aware that it has happened until the day itself. I think the fragments of my little girl's body recall it for me in the whole woman I am today.

Bridget, one of my sons was molested at five. The hour and day that he told me about it, when he was 22, added a new significance to my life, and our relationship. I grieve this still, nearly like the grief over losing my prince of a father. I grieve for you now.

I learned long ago, and many times over, that some things in life cannot be undone. What matters is what we do in the time to come.

Knowing you only by reading, Bridget, your kindness and sweetness give me faith that good can come from where we least expect it.

Bless you, Perdita

Perdita-

Thank you so much for your kindness and encouragement. I was beginning to feel guilty for killing gauche's thread.

The corollary to the story is my second great moment of change.. which was internal rather than external.

I yielded forgiveness to my abuser and the people who covered for him. I had been bound to him and the events for far too long. I wanted to own all of my life, so I chose to forgive them and release them from owing me anything.

The irony is that while this had no impact on their lives- it was an internal choice of mine- it had the most tremendous positive impact on me. A choice that was so hard to make for me because "they owed me" and I wanted to punish them, ended up being the choice that freed me.

b

 

[glspade]

What a great thread, somber though it may be. My heart goes out to you all. It takes courage to bare your soul.

As for myself, there are many.

The death of my brother and mother (twenty odd years apart). Watching my great grandmother die and closing her eyes, lying in the room with her empty body, unable to see the future. The near stillbirth of my daughter. The sight of the rear end of a motionless cattle truck, as I and three others sat powerless while careening down an icy highway, and the 50 mph impact.

One other pops into mind: At a party with my mother, a bearded and dirty man was talking trash about my mother, while she wasn't present. My mother and I were very tight in those days. There I was, 6 years old, using every curse word I had ever heard, telling a fully grown man what a fucking asshole he was and that was my mother and I was going to kill him. Big mistake. He kicked me until I was unconscious. I awoke in his arms. He was cooing to me, telling me it was ok. I ran to the laundry porch of this house and hid. Eventually, my mother and I made it home, but I never told her what happened that day, keeping the bruises hidden. My dirty little secret. I had tried to defend her and failed. The first time, but not the last.
The thing that that event revealed to me was my mortality. For the first time, I realized that I could die.

Sorry to be so wordy and wax nostalgic, but there it is.

g.

 

[CWatson]

Wow. glspade, you've been through a LOT.

gauche, I guess we're drifting afield, since you said to rule out "the inescapable ones," but hey, what can I say. I haven't had anything simple alter my life yet. I'll get back to you in twenty years.

(I think, to some extent, that anything that alters your life automatically stops being 'simple.' But I digress.)

When I was fifteen I was part of an online play-by-e-mail RPG. I was a sophomore at an all-male high school, a true and disgraceful social outcast. The Internet was my playground--I had true friends there, people I trusted and empathized with. One of those friends was a twenty-year-old college student. Over Christmas break of my sophomore year, he disappeared off the Net--no posts, no updates, no ICQ or AIM presence. I'm sorry to say that it took me a month to notice he hadn't been around; and a few days after I realized, he came back.

When I asked him where he had been, I found out a couple of new things about him. The first was that he had a fourteen-year-old sister. The second was that she had been killed in mid-December by a jealous ex-boyfriend.

What shocked me the most was the waste and purposelessness of it all. Fourteen years is by no means a complete and full life; and yet somehow it HAD to be. This unknown girl deserved nothing less. How could I reconcile all the things she had not yet done--graduate high school, go to college, get married, have children, go swimming, eat ice cream, watch the sun set... breathe...--with the fact that she would never do them? And so I had to learn.

I learned that life is fleeting--I learned, like glspade, that I am mortal, that we are ALL mortal, that things can end at any time. And I learned that life has no meaning; how can it, if it can end so arbitrarily?

But I also learned that we can MAKE our lives have meaning. Maybe nothing is assigned to us, but that doesn't mean we can't choose something for ourselves. Because meaning is subjective; according to me, a teenage girl died for the sole purpose of teaching me how ephemeral life is. But that gives us a delerious amount of freedom... To live our lives the way WE want to.

And that's how I changed.

 

[glspade]

Thanks

I just wanted to take the time, as I have wandered through this thread once more, to thank Gauchecritic for bringing all these experiences to be told in this thread.
Too bad it is that many threads have thousands of posts, yet still say nothing, while a thread with posts counting in the dozens continues to speak volumes.

Cheers,

g.

 

[Just_John1]

heavy thread Gauche

My epiphany came from the death of a friend. He had decided one day that he had enough and hanged himself in the basement. It isn't the only time in life that I experienced that and I really struggled with it. It made me think of so much, what happens when we die, was there something I could've done to prevent this? What was he thinking right before he did it? Did he wish he could undo it while it was happening or was it blissful release for him.

It made me think about how precious life is and how precious relationships are. How every conversation with someone could be our last. To this day I've never hesitated to tell my folks, my kids, my family that I love them. I've never hestitated to tell my friends how important to me they are, that they have become a part of me.

I had a similar event happen later in life. A good friend's wife did the same thing, leaving him ill prepared to raise his two small children. I wondered how she could do this. I've never figured it out. I tried to hide with drugs, I tried to help him, but his life had changed forever and we drifted apart. It took me a long time and one of the most difficult battles of my life to get away from the drugs. Definitely changed my life, made me suffer and I think I've become a stronger person from it.

I hope I can protect my children from experiencing the same thing.

All the thoughts, the pain, the questions and the fear have gone untold my entire life, till now. Have no idea why I'm burdening you all with this. Sorry.

JJ1

 

[wildsweetone]

Life changing experiences. Apart from the inescapable ones, death of a near one, puberty, violence, birth; what simple things have made you re-think a situation or change your behaviour towards others?

Gauche

I've thought about this question since I first saw your thread Gauche. No matter how I can state that it's the simplification of things in my own life in the last couple of years that have given me better perspective on others, I still have to say that perspective was instigated by a specific major event.

I think, as I've looked back on the replies here to date, it's the same for most of us. One single major event changed our outlook.

I could say that I've occasionally noticed a mirror image of myself in somebody else that's given me cause to stop and think. But even with knowing and understanding, that mirrored image understanding still stems from a major event.

No matter how I try and avoid it, life, death, violence etc, all plays a part in what makes us what we are today.

Gauche, thanks for making me think. You are appreciated dear. *hug*

 

[fiery_jack]

Life changing experiences. Apart from the inescapable ones, death of a near one, puberty, violence, birth; what simple things have made you re-think a situation or change your behaviour towards others?

Gauche

The one thing that changed my life the most was the breakdown i had halfway through high school. I can still feel its effect in certain situations.and, like wildsweetone said, it changed my outlook completely.

 

[CWatson]

Here's one that's actually really simple.

There's this singer/actress out there named Mandy Moore. I forget when she first broke into the business, but it was a few years ago.

She's a year younger than I am.

When I heard about her, I realized that I was old enough to be taken seriously. I also realized that I was, plain-out, old. I mean, child celebrities are one thing, they're a different universe. But when you have someone who is actually near or around your age, it's completely different. Especially when they're younger than you. You feel stood-up; you feel like you're taller than you should be; you feel like you're shorter than you should be.

 

[Dirty Slut]

For me...

It was the death of my father. He died fighting for a world that he wanted me to live in. I was too young then to understand, but I do know.

DS

 

[oggbashan]

Two things, one sad, one not:

The death of my older sister from polio when she was 11 and I was 7. It was so quick. A few weeks earlier she was full of life. She came home from hospital to die and a day later she was gone. I lost a friend, a protector and a teacher. She was great at helping with my homework and yes I had homework at that age.

My father was posted to Gibraltar a couple of years later. We went from a overcrowded terrace house to an official residence with a cook/maid. We could afford a car to travel in Spain. I learned to swim and free dive to 15 metres. School was from 7am to 1pm and then I could swim until the evening meal. I caught squid to sell for pocket money, chased fish with a spear, explored sunken wrecks and caught jellyfish with a bucket on a rope for more pocket money. It was an idyllic existence that ended when I was 11 and went to a boarding school in England.

Og

 

[SlickTony]

I wish you could have used any other song/incident as an example, Gauche. I've always hated that one.

Frequently stuff happens that puts everything I know in a different light. It usually is connected with finding things out about people.