Life, perspective & moments that stop you in your tracks

Nothing to share that even touches the level others have reached on this thread. Reading this has made me realise I'm incredibly lucky. I've no reason to be whinging after a 'bad' day...

Anyways...

About a year ago I was working the late shift in a petrol station. A clapped out micra pulls up and a girl gets out. I would describe her as being junkieish. She definitely was run down and seemed to have a lot of substance issues. It's hard to tell due to what the stuff does to your body, but I'd guess that she was only a couple of years older than me.

She got out of the car and just stood there. At this point we have the door locked as it's night, so I'm serving through the hatch. I'm watching her and going in my head "oh great. another drunk junkie to serve".

She walked up to the hatch and I see her face is all beaten up. I can't remember what she said but she asked me for help. I had no idea what to do. I opened the doors and went out to her. My colleague who was cleaning told me to just tell her to go away and that we couldn't help her.

The obvious had happened (junkie boyfriend had slapped her around). The way she said it was so matter of factly with just a hint of emotion behind it. Every time she sniffed I looked up to see if she was crying (I was kind of perplexed with how stony faced she was given the circumstances) but she just had a cold or something. I asked if she wanted me to call the guards. She kept insisting that I don't. I noticed the back seat of the car had two black bags and stuff piled on top (personal belongings, clothes etc...). The back, left hand side door had its window broken and there was glass covering the stuff in the back seat. She said "he did it".

She spoke in the usual trembling way an addict does when they're craving. I kind of decided there and then that I wouldn't give her money even though I really wanted to. We get paid in cash and it was pay day, I could have spared €20 but she'd only go spend it on smack or whatever.

She's still standing there talking to me and I'm trying to help her but, really, what can I do? I asked her if she wanted a free cup of coffee or tea (it was obvious she'd be kipping it in the car that night and it was freezing out). Her eyes lit up and she said "yeah". I walked back into the coffee machine only to see if was all turned off. It takes ages for retail coffee machines to go through a start-up procedure. I've never felt like such a thick in my life for having forgotten that I'd cleaned it and shut it down for the night. I then had to tell her that, actually, I couldn't give her a coffee.

I talked to her for a while about her situation. Asked if she had kids with him. She didn't. Asked if I could call the guards for her. Nope. I asked if I could patch up the window of the car for her. She said yes please.

At this point my colleague is covering the till and we're getting behind on work. I grabbed heavy duty bags and duct tape and went out with her to the car. We set about patching up the window together. Because of all the stuff in the car it was a two person job to hold stuff out of the way etc... while I was patching up the window she was holding the bags in place etc...

We were chatting away during this and there was even a joke or two between us.

One that was done we chatted for a few more minutes but my colleague stuck his head out the door and gave a "come on!!" kind of glance. I said I'd have to go back in and lock the doors. She thanked me repeatedly for fixing her window. I felt stupid because all I could think to do to someone in her situation was put a fcuking bag over a broken window.

She drove off.

After my shifts I'd normally walk home listening to music. Just walked home in silence after that shift and had trouble getting her out of my head for a few days. I kept kicking myself thinking that I should have told her to come back the next night for a coffee if she was still sleeping in the car. :mad:

Anyways, about 9 months ago I was on the quays. Just before the Customs House there's a shop called Reynolds or something. I was walking past and there she was standing there looking worse for wear. I'd recognized her right away. I actually went to stop to talk to her and see if she was alright (despite her being surrounded by five or six junkie blokes).

She looked right into my face and without a hint of recognition kept on strolling slowly away with the rest of them. I can only imagine where she's at in life these days.

Anyways. It kind of changed my outlook on junkies / alcos. In general they can be a nuisance and in the past I have (and I sometimes still do) described them as sub-human. But I spent a good half an hour with one on a pretty ****ty night for her and I can say they deal with some fcuked up stuff just to get a fix.

I kind of hope she got clean like in the movies but in reality....

sullivlo wrote: »

...leaving cert in a new school where I settled but didn't excel academically; missing out on my first choice college course; failing first year in the course I got;

I completed my PhD 12 years ago and had a similar experience as this. At the end of my first year in Uni, I achieved 8.5% in Maths, 9.5% in Chemistry, 21% in Computer Science and 34% in Biology.

Getting those results stopped me in my tracks as I realised I had not only wasted a year of my life but that there was someone else out there who missed out on a place at my Uni because I had taken their place.

I resolved to repeat the year and excel thereafter. I graduated with a degree in Biology and then did my PhD. I'll never forget those first results and the guilt I felt towards my parents who had paid the fees for the year and towards the unknown person who missed out on a place because of me.

Oh, and congrats on passing your viva, I remember mine like it was ysterday

I have to say how amazing this thread is, honestly!! I haven't really much to add, but it has made me realise something very important!!

I'm a 23 year old lad, moved out of home a little over a year ago, and since then I call home maybe once every 7-10 days to collect my post, but that's about it!!
Going through this thread has made me realise I need to spend more time with my parents, cause they really have set me up to have a great life and future for myself, and I dont want to wait until its to late to show how grateful I am for all they have done for me and how much I love them!!
When I lived at home, my mum was one of my best friends, I could talk to her about anything, but thats kinda gone now, which I miss!!
Up until this point, I suppose I've had the attitude that they're still young themselves, that they've another 30 years ahead of them, and please god they do, but who knows!!
This thread has given me the kick up the arse I need!!

This won't be as meaning-of-life stop-the-world as the other, deeply moving posts, but still.

I don't want to ever have kids. It's really not a huge deal - it's just not something I want to do. I've been married for 10 years and himself is in the same mind as me on it.

However, one day about seven years ago we were in the car, he driving, me watching the world go by in the passenger seat. We'd just moved to Australia and we were looking at buying our first house together. He's three years older than me. He brought up the subject of children, coming at it in a roundabout sort of way, via a 'we're buying a house, you do this job, I'll do that job, pay the mortgage off, this is our life plan' sort of way. And then suddenly he told me he figured we should have our first child by the time he was 35. He sort of threw it out there, casually, he still driving and watching the road, me going '...wait, what?' He was 33 at the time. All I could think was '33... 35. Two years. TWO YEARS. That means I'd have to be pregnant within the next 13 months. PREGNANT. ME.'

That was as lightly as he mentioned it - and note it wasn't a 'I want children, we need to start a family' conversation, it was a 'timescale, life plan, target' sort of conversation (because he's never been particularly paternal).

He moved on to the next topic, and I sat in the car and my vision pinwheeled to a point in the road in front of me and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I spent all of my teens and my twenties going 'Kids, yeah - no' and laughing it off when people would simper 'Oooo you'll change your mind!' at me. And now here we were, and my husband was putting forward a timeframe for children. With a deadline. Thirteen months. I felt like I had a year left to live. (Someone since has said to me it sounds like I had a panic attack. Imagine that? Your husband tells you 'we should have kids' and you have a panic attack. There's a warning sign right there.)

For two days I walked around in a daze. This wasn't a cute idea I was coming to terms with. I didn't get the warm fuzzies over it. I felt sick, and terrified, and confronted by something I just really didn't want to do. I couldn't process it. From the moment he'd met me, I'd told him I didn't want kids. I made it clear before we got married. I made it clear after we got married. I made it clear before we moved to Australia. Don't want kids. Have never wanted kids. Not going to have children.

Did he not believe me, or something?

Eventually later in the week I told him we needed to talk. I don't remember much about the conversation. Apparently I looked pale and sick and he told me later he thought I was going to request a divorce or tell him I was seriously ill. I think I remember saying 'I don't want kids. I wasn't joking. I've told you this, over and over. You want them by 35. I'd have to be pregnant in the next 13 months. I can't do it. I won't do it. I don't want to do it. I really, really, really don't want to have children.' Apparently I babbled a lot - so much so that he told me to calm down and that everything was all right.

And then he said something like 'It's okay. If you really don't want kids we don't have to have kids. I just thought if we were going to have them we should start when we're in the house.'

I never understood the meaning of 'it feels like the weight of the world has lifted off your shoulders' until that moment. I actually had a physical sensation, a sort of decompressing, like I could breathe again.

After that, we discussed it properly, at length. Himself really, really wasn't pushed. He'd do it if I wanted to do it. He wasn't bothered if I didn't want to do it. My God, I pressed him on that last part. Really pressed him. I was so shaken by the idea he'd even seen himself with a child enough to put a timeframe on it, I really didn't believe he wasn't secretly hanging around waiting for my body clock to kick in. (I think I actually said 'This isn't going to change, don't hang around waiting for my bodyclock to kick in. There is no ticking. It might be digital.) Fact is, husband in his early 30s wasn't paternal and wasn't really pushed either way about having children. He was in that space where I think a lot of people linger - people who aren't particularly pushed about having kids - where you think it's something you need to do next because that's what people do. I at the time was a very easygoing person who tended to do what my partner wanted to do (which is why we were in Australia, and living in the town we were in, and why we now move around the country after himself's job).

Lots of people like us end up with children because it's what you do, as opposed to because it was something they desperately wanted. It often works out extremely well for them and having the first child was what it took to persuade them they wanted to be parents. For us, it was actually a tremendous effort to identify parenthood and make a conscious decision, 'Let's never do that. Let's agree now, we're never doing that.'

Seven years on and still child free, we don't regret our decision. We filled our lives with other things - and we have the flexibility to continue to fill our lives with other things. Still though, if I had to identify one moment in my life where everything hinged on a single conversation, it was most definitely that day in the car.

I was looking up my old district manager to find out if he could give me a referance only to find out he'd passed away in a hospic 2 years prevously (it was only 5 years since I worked for him).

It just stunned me, he was great - he gave me my first manager job, spoke to me like a friend not an employee.

He was a good person. He didn't deserve to die so young. He wasn't even 40...

Well done whoops.

Whoopsa I had heard your story but I didn't know it was you, if that makes sense. you're amazing!

I had a bit of a stop in your tracks moment today. I found out a girl I was in school with committed suicide last night.

Now I have not seen nor spoken to this girl in years, but she always stuck in my head as a lovely, happy bubbly girl, who would make time for anyone.

what struck me was that how, at 23 years old, this girl thought she had no other option, thats what made me sad - and then it dawned on me that she's not the only one, she's not the first and she won't be the last. it made me realise how lucky I am to have what I have, to love the people I love and to be as happy with my life as I am. not everyone is, and that's something I never realised, something I most definitely took for granted, and I never will again.