Sometimes things happen in our lives that change us forever. There's life before and there's life after and there's no going back.
“It was a fun couple of days until…”
“My spilt happened at an early age. My dad is from India and I was born in America. At the age of 5, my dad would ask if I wanted to go to India for a vacation. After a year I agreed to go with him. It was a fun couple of days till we reached his home town. We got to his uncle’s house and my dad told me to go say hi to my grandfather, whom I had met in the US before. After hugging my grandfather I look around to find my dad. I see him running. So I run after him through the house. When I got to the front, he had jumped in a taxi and rode off back to the US. I had no idea I would be staying in India for the next 3 years and going to boarding school. I didn’t know any of the languages there. And it was my first experience with teachers being allowed to hit you. I always look at my life as life before India and life after.”
“I now have new social experiences…”
“Losing weight. I lost 130 pounds after a break up and it’s seriously like starting a new life. Every day I have new social experiences that never happened when I was heavy.”
“I’m not me anymore…”
“Getting so sick in my 20’s that I literally thought I was going to die several times. Spent over 60 days in the hospital in one year. I 100 percent changed from who I was before. Old friends are just that, old friends because I’m not me anymore.”
“It completely destroyed my home, but…”
“Hurricane Sandy. It completely destroyed my home, but I was living in a bad situation. After I was able to separate from my toxic family issues. Since then I’ve gotten my own place, met my future wife, and have had a beautiful son.”
“The day last Septemper when…”
“The day last September when I found out my extremely loving, moral, kind, thoughtful, husband and best friend of 30 plus years had been an extremely active member of Ashley Madison for over 6 years and was living a second life I never knew about. It changed every aspect of me and every aspect of my life. I don’t look anything the same. It changed my personality.”
“I finally plucked up the courage to call…”
“My boyfriend dying while we were together. Some background – I met him on Tinder (I know, I know), on a whim. I met up with him, and he was 45 minutes late to dinner. When he did show up, he was dressed in a nice suit and brought me a rose. He explained that he was a truck driver, and he wanted to shower and be cleaned and groomed when he was to meet me. When I dropped him off that night, he was staying at one of those truck stop lot things where there’s a shower and food, but you sleep in the cab of your truck. We quickly fell for one another. He was very respectful of me, and didn’t touch me until I touched him, and even then, he was respectful. We talked constantly on the phone, and I was able to see him almost every weekend when he passes through town. He loved being a truck driver, because he loved to travel. He took the most beautiful pictures, and they’re still on Instagram. Valentine’s week, he said he wanted to meet my family. I told my family, and they were so excited. We were planning Sunday dinner. He was driving from California that night, so he could arrive on Valentine’s Day. The last text I ever sent him was the time the Natural History museum closed – we were going to go because we were nerds. I woke up Valentine’s morning to a Facebook message from someone I didn’t know. It said, “call me when you get this, XXX-XXX-XXXX. Upon quick investigation, I saw that it was from his mom. I got really nervous, because they lived in Florida, and I’d never met them. What could she have to say? Was she going to tell me to stay away from her son? Maybe tell me he’s a psychopath? I had no idea. I finally plucked up the courage to call her, and that’s when she told me over the phone that he’d died in a rollover in the middle of the night in Nevada. I was completely devastated. And worse, I blamed myself completely. Who knew downloading a stupid app would lead to his demise? I remember sobbing together with his mom on the phone, and between my gasps I asked if she was upset with me. She reassured me that she wasn’t, and we ended a call a short time later. This has affected every one of my relationships since then. I treated my next boyfriend like he could die any day, and I made him promise (multiple times) not to drive distracted, and text me when he got wherever he was going. This was a tad ridiculous, and we didn’t last long. I still have a deep fear of letting someone drive to get me. I volunteer whenever I can do drive or go to them, and it all attributes back to that earth-stopping moment.”
“My first seizure and…”
“My first seizure and epilepsy diagnosis…I was kicked out of the Air Force, temporarily had to leave my aerospace engineering studies. Caused me to meet the love of my life. Changed my perspective of the world and a whole bunch of other things.”
“When my then boyfriend of 6 years…”
“When my then boyfriend of 6 years committed suicide in our living room and I found him. Seven years later I have a new life and married a wonderful man, but that thing won’t ever disappear and there’s no single day that the horrible image doesn’t appear in my mind for at least one second, some days longer and regrets and questions run through my mind. Since then I have had to deal with anxiety, which I have almost 100 percent controlled but I will never be the same as ‘before.'”
“The day my former boss told me…”
“The day my former boss told me to ‘get on Weight Watchers’ to cut costs on shirts. 175 lbs lost later, I really should thank her for the motivation.”
“My first non-minimum wage job…”
“My first non-minimum wage job. The difference a little bit of disposable income makes is insane.”
“Nothing is the same afterwards…”
“Best friend’s suicide. I have a huge gap in my memory from when it happened, about 3-4 days. But nothing is the same afterwards. I visit the cemetery every month and still message him, but know that I’ll never get a reply. Almost everything is ‘B was still there when it happened.’ ‘B wasn’t there.'”
“I tasted my first…”
“I tasted my first Oreo at the age of 21. That day changed my life.”
“She finally had enough and said…”
“Quitting the band that could have potentially made it big, because my wife was leaving me. I was on the road all the time having a blast. She was home alone in a strange city bored and jealous. She finally had enough and said that she was moving home with or without me. I quit and went with her. It pretty much ended my dream of making it in music. She ended up being a total b*tch. Once I stopped being a ‘rock star type,’ cut my hair and started getting serious about my life, she lost interest in me and started cheating, so I dumped her ass.”
“I packed my bags and…”
“I packed my bags from Sydney and got a one way ticket to San Francisco to pursue the start-up dream. 3.5 years later, I have the best co-founder in the world, and the best team (12 employees) and great investors, and amazing partnerships. Literally I went to live my dream and am currently fortunate enough to say I’m in the middle of it now! Before this, I was working a great job, but had zero fulfillment in my life. Now I make nearly no money ($2500 per month) but have so much self-satisfaction for what my team has helped us as a company accomplish so far!”