After posing the question to you yesterday, I found it necessary to step back and present the query to myself; it is only fair you know.
Once I read all your responses/comments I could concur with each and every one; graduating college as well as packing my belongings and moving out of state-the only one in our family to leave the small town of Tiffin, Ohio.
I wondered if it was the presence of an alcoholic father and the domestic violence I witnessed, or was it the divorce of my parents? Perhaps the sexual abuse from my step-father, or the abusive relationships of my own? Someone might point to being raped as a life-altering event in my life, the foiled suicide attempts, the years of enduring anorexia and bulimia? Each happening would seem significant in its own right, but it isn’t any one of those events since those were merely my way of life for so long, it’s what the vision on my life came to be.
In addition, I had become accustomed to being disappointed by people in my life-the family of aunts, uncles and cousins who after my grandmother died with an abundance of money cut off my mother as a result of hate and jealousy, therefore I have no extended family. The pangs of envy grab hold each time a friend or colleagues talk of gatherings or family reunions-I have nothing more to offer in this realm.
So now you know why this was such a dilemma for me but before you feel sad and sorry for me, because there’s no need to--I decided that truly the most significant life-altering event was the decision to have our child, Nicholas.
After the ‘I do’s were announced we waivered on the decision for ten years which was why the love of our life, Nicholas was born seven months before I turned forty. But you see, up until that pronouncement was declared, I was on my path to self-destruction with the anorexia, bulimia and the desire to end a life; my own. I was filled with such self-hatred and loathing that I wouldn’t have given that life to any baby-particularly my own.
However, it was upon that day, that moment that second that I declared myself valuable enough to give up all the detestation and revulsion for the love of a child-our child who had not even been conceived. Once that skin of disgust was shed the focus became being the absolute best person I could become to be a loving mother to my child.
Therefore, you are so right, sometimes life-altering moments aren’t the winning of American Idol or even the lottery; significant events can be a transformation in attitude.
"Life gives us brief moments with another...
but sometimes in those brief moment
we get memories that last a life time...”
