I don’t think I have had a real life altering event. Not in the sense that any single event did radically change my life. For example when my mother died -I was 17- I did not really change the way I was but over the course of the years it did influence me.
I guess I am like an ocean current. A bit of turbulence at the sided, a storm passing over but I slowly move on steadily.
When I was about 11 or 12, I had an accident. I was biking home from a friend’s house-a friend that I can honestly say was the first person I’d ever really loved, in that way that you’re just learning what that flutter in your stomach is-in the more pure and innocent and idealistic way possible, and I was on my way back from her her house. My parents had imposed a curfew on me because they knew full well that if I didn’t have one, I’d never come home, and while I consider my friendship with her to be one of the most important sets of events in my life, that’s another story.
I was biking home from her house, and passing a neighbor who had their street corner attractively decorated with their mailbox sitting in a mulch mound surrounded by bricks jutting up from the mulch in a jagged pattern bordering the area. No sooner than I was about to pass their house than my shoelace came loose, tangled in my bike pedal, and caused me to fall, literally gouging my leg open on the bricks in their yard. I fell, screaming, clutching my leg. Every move hurt, and I was bleeding all over the pavement. But it wasn’t the accident that was specifically life changing, it’s what happened next.
A couple of movers were finishing up a job in a house about 50 feet or so from where I was. I was lying on the ground in my own blood when they walked out of the house. I yelled over to them for help, and they looked at me with a derisive stare, and both of them promptly and without hesitation, got into their truck and drove away past me, leaving me lying on the street. I was stunned. Absolutely floored. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t help, it was that it was the first time someone had GONE OUT OF THEIR WAY to not help.
I was floored. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood up, in incredible pain, and got on my bike, and rode the rest of the way home, bleeding down my leg behind me. I don’t remember being in more pain. I got home, walked in, and told my parents “I’m bleeding,” and they rushed to tend to me. I learned something important that day- I was going from a place of happiness to another place of happiness, from loved one to home, and in between I got tripped up. But I learned that not everyone treated other people like they would like to be treated; not everyone was willing to look out for one another. And as much as it made me sad, it taught me something. Turned out I had gouged my leg down to the muscle-it was pretty ugly, and I’ve got a nice big scar on my leg to remind me of the lesson-and to remind me to help other people whenever I can.
One phrase “We are just acquaintances” that I heard about 8 years ago. It changed me in a way that I can’t really describe and I can’t really imagine what life would be like without it. I don’t think I would be where I am career wise if I hadn’t heard it.
I don’t think I have had a real life altering event. Not in the sense that any single event did radically change my life. For example when my mother died -I was 17- I did not really change the way I was but over the course of the years it did influence me.
I guess I am like an ocean current. A bit of turbulence at the sided, a storm passing over but I slowly move on steadily.
When I was about 11 or 12, I had an accident. I was biking home from a friend’s house-a friend that I can honestly say was the first person I’d ever really loved, in that way that you’re just learning what that flutter in your stomach is-in the more pure and innocent and idealistic way possible, and I was on my way back from her her house. My parents had imposed a curfew on me because they knew full well that if I didn’t have one, I’d never come home, and while I consider my friendship with her to be one of the most important sets of events in my life, that’s another story.
I was biking home from her house, and passing a neighbor who had their street corner attractively decorated with their mailbox sitting in a mulch mound surrounded by bricks jutting up from the mulch in a jagged pattern bordering the area. No sooner than I was about to pass their house than my shoelace came loose, tangled in my bike pedal, and caused me to fall, literally gouging my leg open on the bricks in their yard. I fell, screaming, clutching my leg. Every move hurt, and I was bleeding all over the pavement. But it wasn’t the accident that was specifically life changing, it’s what happened next.
A couple of movers were finishing up a job in a house about 50 feet or so from where I was. I was lying on the ground in my own blood when they walked out of the house. I yelled over to them for help, and they looked at me with a derisive stare, and both of them promptly and without hesitation, got into their truck and drove away past me, leaving me lying on the street. I was stunned. Absolutely floored. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t help, it was that it was the first time someone had GONE OUT OF THEIR WAY to not help.
I was floored. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood up, in incredible pain, and got on my bike, and rode the rest of the way home, bleeding down my leg behind me. I don’t remember being in more pain. I got home, walked in, and told my parents “I’m bleeding,” and they rushed to tend to me. I learned something important that day- I was going from a place of happiness to another place of happiness, from loved one to home, and in between I got tripped up. But I learned that not everyone treated other people like they would like to be treated; not everyone was willing to look out for one another. And as much as it made me sad, it taught me something. Turned out I had gouged my leg down to the muscle-it was pretty ugly, and I’ve got a nice big scar on my leg to remind me of the lesson-and to remind me to help other people whenever I can.
One phrase “We are just acquaintances” that I heard about 8 years ago. It changed me in a way that I can’t really describe and I can’t really imagine what life would be like without it. I don’t think I would be where I am career wise if I hadn’t heard it.
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