Defining moments?
 

Ever had a defining moment that made you who you are?

Yes. In the middle of my life - after creating my own Hell on Earth, I decided not to kill myself and to take total responsibility for everything in my entire life.

Things have been AOK since then.

listening to JazdiaDax when she gave me a bit of advice a while back. As a result, I now can say without question, my life is worth living to its fullest, every moment of it. And I wasn't that weird afterall, I just needed to know where to go...And I found it.

It was just before my first surgery. I was given about a 50-50 chance of surviving it, and an almost 100% chance of being a quadriplegic if I did survive. With my family sitting around me, I took a deep breath and told them I'd be okay.

My story is similar to spectre's...I had a bad accident that almost took my life. That changed me forever, gave me an appreciation of life itself and taught me many things (such as patience!). I suppose that, for me, had to be a defining moment as it did alter me from that moment on.

My father walking out on me. It made me realize all the things I did not want to be.

After some years of stressing out over others control of my life, I finally came of age and things became my responsibility. Surviving through it, and becoming what I am now, partially helped by the physical effects of stress. Amazing what a surgery can do.

I don't think I've come to the point in my life where I can say that there was one defining moment...but I know exactly what you're talking about. Those moments sit there in your mind as somethign that was truely great. For example, that first job and pay check you got...or rather I. I think that just made me appreciate that I can get work and get money myself.

It doesnt match up to some of the ones above. But a friend and i took on a whole institution about the rights to a film we made. (And we won) The whole process was so horrible. I remeber the moment when we sent the first letter. We just decided not to be stepped on anymore and actually do something about it.

I would say I've had two important moments in my life.

First was when I'd been with an abusive boyfriend. My parents had packed up my stuff and brought it all home against my protest - Insisted that I come home. After being separated from him for a time thanks to my parent's and family's intervention I wasn't feeling so tied up in him. My Grandmother came and sat to talk with me a long time. He'd had me convinced that he was the only one who could love me. She told me she would always love me because of who I was was, her grandaughter, and not because of anything I did or even what I looked like. I heard the love in her voice then and saw it in her eyes. I broke something inside and I didn't care what my boyfriend thought of me anymore. I took all his gifts and mailed them back to him and I burned all his notes and his picture. Watching his picture melt in the fire was releasing to me. He had no more hold on me. I was free and loved.

Second moment was when my daughter was born. It was actually the second day after the birth because she'd been more in the middle of the night and I was half comatose from drugs the whole next day. It was around 5:00am before any family arrived. She was in my room and woke to nurse and fell back to sleep soon after. I was able to get up by then and got out of bed and held her for a long while just standing there. I could see the Mississippi river out my window to the West and the Sun was behind me. I watched as rays of the sun would shoot across and light up the bluffs as the sun rose. I stood there until everything was shining and the sky was blue. Looking at my daughter and watching her sleep made so many thoughts go through my mind. I know it changed me. It made me more determined, stronger, and gave me such joy.

The birth of my Son and the defining moments that he makes me strive for.

Every day.

I remember sitting around a table where my uncle was talking with other family members when I was about 19 years old. It was at my grandfather's funeral.

He wasn't talking to me, but I'm sure it was said for my benefit.
He mentioned that a point comes in every young person's life around their early twenties where a line is crossed, and from that day onward they look at their parents not just as parents, but as people - people with pasts, futures, dreams, and imperfections.

From that day onward my relationship with my parents changed forever for the better.

Moving from a suburb to a small beach/rural settlement when I was 9 had a big effect on who I am today.

The schools and students were very different. Most of the students at my second school came from fairly poor families, and many had single parents. They were a lot rougher than the kids at my previous school, and most seemed to be having a much harder time with the education system - at my first school practically everyone in my class knew their multiplication tables up to 10, but at my new school, I was one of only 2 or 3 in my class who knew them. A couple of them could hardly read. I'd never thought of myself as being at all above average at my first school, but my new classmates quickly decided I was "brainy". This, combined with my computer gaming hobby, which had not been at all unusual at my first school, and my newfound quietness (a result of being in a new environment) got me quickly labelled a geek.

At my first school I had been quite loud, talkative, and occasionally mischievous. That all disappeared when I moved. Ever since then I've been a lot quieter, and sometimes a little uncomfortable in new situations/around new people. Only recently have I stgarted making an effort to be more outgoing again. I feel quite certain that had we never moved, I'd be a lot more talkative and confident today.