by Elaine de Kooning Things often become meaningful only in retrospect. It’s incredibly difficult to gauge the significance of an event as it occurs—I don’t doubt there are genuine moments of love at first sight and obvious catastrophes, but many beginnings are inconspicuous. Even when something is clearly important it’s hard how to predict how it’ll change you.
I have two life-changing dates, and I knew at the time they were. December 4, 1987, I walked down the stairs of a bar with my friend Lori, who had a crush on one of the fraternity brothers hosting a party there. His best friend from high school was with him - we saw each other across the crowd and that was that. We were together, on and off, for 5 years. Through him, I met C., who became my college bestie. She introduced me to her boyfriend's brother. We've been married for 20+ years. I almost didn't to that party - it had been a busy day, but I had promised to go along for moral support. Then January 4, 2014 - we took our daughter to the ER because she just wasn't getting better from a Christmas flu. The diagnosis: leukemia.
Love your reflections! Esp. love how the turning points in your life range from “leaving school” to more seemingly inconspicuous & unpredictable major points such as “meaningless small talk at a friend’s party”. Life is a ride!
For me, I have a couple (and I guess they tend on the more "predictable" side):
1. Graduating university with the knowledge that a hill has been climbed. The process (which then, I had come to the sudden realization that I had truly enjoyed) was over and now I had to stand athwart and figure out where to go and what to do from here.
2. Finding God. The commitment to living a certain way, to ritual, to regarding & treating others with a new outlook that could no longer centre predominantly on the “I” truly changed everything in my life.
3. Learning how to be a kid again. “For me, the process of becoming an adult involved returning to the kid I was.” <— I can relate so much to this! Tending on the workaholic side, learning how to have fun, how to conceive of leisure and make the most of genuine leisure time, and how to—in Huxley’s words—“live lightly”, was a huge part of 2020 and generic lockdown strategy for me. Will surely carry this newfound appreciation for "childlikeness" into the future.
I really enjoyed this piece. For me a turning point was my first day of university. We had an induction meeting on the first day and I tagged along with the girl living directly across the hall. The conversation was awkward even by the standards you would expect. We fell in with the same friends, our conversations largely late nights spent complaining to each other about the difficulties we were having romantically. By our final year we had grown close and I asked her out. Fast forward to this year and we will be getting married, just under ten years after our first meeting. I think a lot about how we spent two years ignorant that we would be the most important person in each other's life. Ultimately I don't think I would have liked to know where we were headed.
I think I disagree that the self is created rather than inherited. As time goes on we have the freedom to discard the expectations of us set by our parents and our peers, choosing who we want to be. But rather counterintuitively, twin studies show that many traits become more heritable as we age rather than less. Given the choice and freedom from expectations, many of us choose to be more like our parents. They are our authentic selves, hidden beneath the creations they moulded us to be.
I love this piece so so much!! In terms of turning points, I feel like I haven't had any single huge event that led to major change. It's more like several separate events that don't have enough power to act as catalysts on their own, but when taken together, end up having this huge effect. The biggest change so far sort of fits under the "uni" umbrella - but it's a mix of being away from my parents for a prolonged period of time for the first time, stumbling into EA, meeting my BF etc. I definitely didn't realize how important all the events were when they happened, but now that it has been almost a year since my undergrad, it's become quite clear that this set of events had driven me away from the standard "go back to Hong Kong post-graduation and take on a prestigious management consulting/law role" path to a more open-ended and hopefully more fulfilling one! Also "For me, the process of becoming an adult involved returning to the kid I was." <-- I feel like that might be me. Growing up I had a clear of sense what I really liked: reading/writing, learning languages, dancing/figure skating but I've somehow managed to abandon all three (not counting academic reading/writing) upon arriving at uni. But during the last few months, my soul has literally been pulling me towards doing those things again!
This post cast a warm light on some of my own turning points in life so far. Thank you for sharing. I was talking to a friend about this and I’m glad to hear someone else say it haha
I think part of what I’m doing rn is rediscovering the self. It’s so easy to be crunched into a blender, homogenized by our environments, our rough yet pure elements smoothened out. It really is something else when you uncover it again.
Also, I think it’s interesting how those trivial moments are so…fragile. They’re delicate. I decided to walk another route one day, off from my usual and the cascade effect of that one decision paid dividends that I couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Luck, perhaps, but you can’t be lucky unless you act lucky, right? No particular aim for the decision, no practical reason, not really high stakes either. Yet, these deceptively innocuous moments are where I find myself returning to when I reflect on the sort of genesis of meeting someone important to me or becoming more with myself again.
These were just some rambly loose thoughts but cheers dude lol
I have two life-changing dates, and I knew at the time they were. December 4, 1987, I walked down the stairs of a bar with my friend Lori, who had a crush on one of the fraternity brothers hosting a party there. His best friend from high school was with him - we saw each other across the crowd and that was that. We were together, on and off, for 5 years. Through him, I met C., who became my college bestie. She introduced me to her boyfriend's brother. We've been married for 20+ years. I almost didn't to that party - it had been a busy day, but I had promised to go along for moral support. Then January 4, 2014 - we took our daughter to the ER because she just wasn't getting better from a Christmas flu. The diagnosis: leukemia.
Indeed self-discovery is a must for all. Thank you!
Loving the journaling prompts at the end, its a nice way of connecting your thoughts and writing to the inner world.
Love your reflections! Esp. love how the turning points in your life range from “leaving school” to more seemingly inconspicuous & unpredictable major points such as “meaningless small talk at a friend’s party”. Life is a ride!
For me, I have a couple (and I guess they tend on the more "predictable" side):
1. Graduating university with the knowledge that a hill has been climbed. The process (which then, I had come to the sudden realization that I had truly enjoyed) was over and now I had to stand athwart and figure out where to go and what to do from here.
2. Finding God. The commitment to living a certain way, to ritual, to regarding & treating others with a new outlook that could no longer centre predominantly on the “I” truly changed everything in my life.
3. Learning how to be a kid again. “For me, the process of becoming an adult involved returning to the kid I was.” <— I can relate so much to this! Tending on the workaholic side, learning how to have fun, how to conceive of leisure and make the most of genuine leisure time, and how to—in Huxley’s words—“live lightly”, was a huge part of 2020 and generic lockdown strategy for me. Will surely carry this newfound appreciation for "childlikeness" into the future.
Your writing is easy to read. Love it :)
I really enjoyed this piece. For me a turning point was my first day of university. We had an induction meeting on the first day and I tagged along with the girl living directly across the hall. The conversation was awkward even by the standards you would expect. We fell in with the same friends, our conversations largely late nights spent complaining to each other about the difficulties we were having romantically. By our final year we had grown close and I asked her out. Fast forward to this year and we will be getting married, just under ten years after our first meeting. I think a lot about how we spent two years ignorant that we would be the most important person in each other's life. Ultimately I don't think I would have liked to know where we were headed.
I think I disagree that the self is created rather than inherited. As time goes on we have the freedom to discard the expectations of us set by our parents and our peers, choosing who we want to be. But rather counterintuitively, twin studies show that many traits become more heritable as we age rather than less. Given the choice and freedom from expectations, many of us choose to be more like our parents. They are our authentic selves, hidden beneath the creations they moulded us to be.
I love this piece so so much!! In terms of turning points, I feel like I haven't had any single huge event that led to major change. It's more like several separate events that don't have enough power to act as catalysts on their own, but when taken together, end up having this huge effect. The biggest change so far sort of fits under the "uni" umbrella - but it's a mix of being away from my parents for a prolonged period of time for the first time, stumbling into EA, meeting my BF etc. I definitely didn't realize how important all the events were when they happened, but now that it has been almost a year since my undergrad, it's become quite clear that this set of events had driven me away from the standard "go back to Hong Kong post-graduation and take on a prestigious management consulting/law role" path to a more open-ended and hopefully more fulfilling one! Also "For me, the process of becoming an adult involved returning to the kid I was." <-- I feel like that might be me. Growing up I had a clear of sense what I really liked: reading/writing, learning languages, dancing/figure skating but I've somehow managed to abandon all three (not counting academic reading/writing) upon arriving at uni. But during the last few months, my soul has literally been pulling me towards doing those things again!
This post cast a warm light on some of my own turning points in life so far. Thank you for sharing. I was talking to a friend about this and I’m glad to hear someone else say it haha
I think part of what I’m doing rn is rediscovering the self. It’s so easy to be crunched into a blender, homogenized by our environments, our rough yet pure elements smoothened out. It really is something else when you uncover it again.
Also, I think it’s interesting how those trivial moments are so…fragile. They’re delicate. I decided to walk another route one day, off from my usual and the cascade effect of that one decision paid dividends that I couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Luck, perhaps, but you can’t be lucky unless you act lucky, right? No particular aim for the decision, no practical reason, not really high stakes either. Yet, these deceptively innocuous moments are where I find myself returning to when I reflect on the sort of genesis of meeting someone important to me or becoming more with myself again.
These were just some rambly loose thoughts but cheers dude lol
Beautiful ❤️