Defining Moments

There are certain moments in our lives that society tells us are supposed to be the “happiest moments of our lives.” A marriage. The birth of a first child. Winning a Nobel prize. Graduating college. Buying your first home. I’m a bit tired of letting other people’s ideals tell me which moments I’m supposed to love best, and which ones I’m supposed to remember and treasure.

One defining moment of my life, one turning point, is one I remember as one of the worst moments of my life, not the best.

It was senior year of college, and I had just landed my first publishing-related internship. I’ve been writing and editing since I was seven, and was officially a published writer at age 13. So by the time I landed this internship, after almost five years of schooling and studying for it, I had been working towards this goal, this moment, for give or take 15 years.

I got the internship, and then I blew it. I can say it was because I don’t drive and I’m blind and that my transportation was unreliable and I was always late. I can say it was because I agreed to come in three days a week during winter break and then got lazy and didn’t want to do it. I can say it was because I had bad asthma that winter and got sick a lot and my attendance was poor. Whatever the reason, on February 14, 2005, my internship supervisor called me up and fired me over the phone, on Valentine’s day.

I was in a CVS near my college at the time with my boyfriend picking up antibiotics because I was sick. As is my nature, I tried to argue things to go my way. I remember telling the lady, “But I really am sick, I’m at the drugstore right now. I can bring in a note. I can make up extra time. We can work something out.” She said, “I’m sorry, the decision is final, effective immediately.”

I hung up the phone and fell to the floor in the middle of CVS, crying hysterically. My boyfriend had to drag me to my feet and over to a chair. I was making a complete scene. Everything that I had worked for since I was seven years old was over. I had fucked it up. It was pointless. The past five years of college, of studying, of really caring and learning and putting all that effort into my classes was over. I had failed at my one shot to turn this into a profession. College had been pointless. Every poem and essay and article and book review I had ever written, every “A” I got, every writing contest I had won, pointless, all turned meaningless by a one-minute phone call. What was the point of even finishing school? I was three months away from graduation and had fucked up my only chance of making something out of myself after. I had no plans for a career in three months, and didn’t even have a place to live after school got out.

What followed were the worst two weeks of my life. I woke up every day thinking about my situation, went to bed every night thinking about it, and cried all day. I had nightmares. I stayed in bed for two weeks crying, right through my four-year anniversary with my boyfriend, skipping my classes, not studying or doing any work, eating Ramen noodles to stay alive. Why get out of bed when the only thing that’s driven you to do so for 15 years is over? So I didn’t bother.

Eventually I got out of bed, emailed my teachers and told them I was having a bit of a personal crisis, and started catching up again. They were all very understanding, mostly because they had known me in the English and Philosophy department for five years and knew that I always got As, tried my hardest, genuinely cared about learning the material, and had never slacked off before. I graduated in May of 2005 with a 3.5 GPA and a BA of Humanities in English and Philosophy, and won the 2005 Outstanding Achievement in Philosophy award, which is only given to one graduating student every year.

After college I moved in with a girl I had met off of an ad on cragistlist who I only met for five minutes. She took me into her apartment knowing I had no job and no money and no plans for my life, with the faith that I would find a job and be able to pay half the bills, when I don’t even think she knew my last name. I worked at Camp again one final summer to make some money to pay rent on my first apartment and to stall for time while I looked for a “real job.” I then spent several years in a string of terrible daycare jobs, being kicked and bitten by autistic children, and then treated like shit at a horrible daycare center where I cleaned the shit off of rich people’s children and worked with drunken gossiping idiots.

Finally, on September 19, 2008, less than a week after attending my grandmother’s funeral who had just passed away from ovarian cancer, I got the most important call of my life. An interview I had gone on three months ago and since forgotten about had paid off, and I was offered a job at a toy trade publication in NYC, where I sit typing this today.

Now, I own a house with the same boyfriend who was there for the worst call of my life on February 14, 2005, and the best call of my life on September 19, 2008. I have a home I love, a man I love who loves me very much and has seen me at my very best and very worst, and a job where I think every day about how lucky I am, how fortunate I am to do what I know I was always meant to do.

Have you ever had an experience, a day, a moment, a conversation, an encounter, that you knew would change you forever; that would shape your future? Was it a positive one or a negative one?

When you look back at your life, your childhood, your family, your school years, your college years…are most of your strongest memories the good ones or the bad ones? Don’t we all remember that one really bad injury we had as a kid, our first broken bone, and our first broken heart? Aren’t these memories at least as strong in you as those of your first kiss, your wedding day, your first promotion? Do the types of memories that stand out to you, positive or negative, determine whether you’re generally a positive or a negative person? I think that might be true at least in my case.

Do our moments define what type of people we become, or does who we are define what moments we have and how we react to them?

People Watching

Last week on the train I saw a little old lady carrying a Playboy Bunny purse. I wondered if she knew what it meant, or if some mean-spirited grandchild had given it to her as a joke and she thought, "Oh, what a nice rabbit." Because I definitely have people in my family who would find giving such a gift to my un-knowing grandmother hilarious. Why does the old lady carry a Playboy bag? I wonder what her story is.

A couple days ago I stood next to a woman on the train who was on the phone. Judging by her end of the conversation, she was very upset with someone about potato salad. I think about the reasons why I fight with people and get upset with people, and I realize that in 28 years, none of my conflicts in life have ever been about potato salad. Either her life is vastly less complicated than mine and I wish my problems were as mild as potato salad, or I was seriously missing something about her conversation. I wonder what her story is.

The other day, some dude passing me on the street in NYC stopped and looked at me and said, very excitedly, "Hey! Susan!" In the second it took for me to stop and blink at him confused-ly, he realized I was not Susan and walked away. Who is Susan? How much do I actually look like her? Was he supposed to meet her that day, or did he just think he ran into her/me? I wonder what his story is.

This all goes back to yesterday's post, and the lesson that's been in my life lately...we don't know someone, or their story, or their feelings, no matter how much we think we may, just from brief encounters with them. What we get from people, even the people we are closest to, is apparently just a tiny grain of sand compared to the whole island that makes up their life, their personality, their story.

I'm often told that the way I come off to people, the impressions I give, are not the ones I intend and not how I see myself. I wonder what piece of my story people get from chance encounters, or even from whole relationships or lifelong friendships, with me?

It's All About Perception

I'm reminded lately that what we see, and what we think we know, about people can be vastly different from the truth.

About a week ago I was walking down the street in NYC on my way to work. Walking in front of me was a skinny couple, a boy and a girl. I judged that they were young, because though I only saw the back of them, they were wearing those trendy skinny jeans, wallets with long silver chains sticking out of their pockets, hooded sweatshirts, and silly canvas sneakers with neon laces.

The boy had his arm around the girls' shoulder, and she had her arm around his waist, and was leaning into his side as they walked. I walked behind them, admiring their moment of happiness and remembering what it feels like to walk arm in arm with the one you love on a sunny morning, in no hurry, thinking only about the touch of him at your side as you walk. I was having a bit of nostalgia for such moments, thinking both that it was so nice for them that they could be sharing such a moment, and also that it would be nice for me to remember to appreciate such moments when they come along in my own life.

Then, when we reached the intersection, the couple parted for a moment as they waited for the light to change in their favor. The girl pulled away and looked up at the boy, and she was crying. Hard. Her face was red and I could see the tears, and she just looked at him like she was in such emotional pain, and wanted him to make it stop. He hugged her tighter and they went on their way, and I went on mine.

I kept thinking about them long after they were out of sight. What was she crying about? Was she unhappy with her relationship with the boy, crying because they were fighting or breaking up? Had she just lost a job or a relative that was very important to her? Was he moving away? Was one of them diagnosed with a terminal illness? I was so moved by the look on her face that I almost asked her what was wrong. But of course I didn't--I spin around in circles in my little teacup, you in yours.

What really struck me as I continued my walk to work that morning was how something can look one way from the outside, but be so different for those who are in it. I thought they were a young tourist couple enjoying a day in the city and basking in young love, just by glimpsing them from the back. Then, the story looked entirely different from the front. And I'm sure the couples' tale is even more different in his head, or in hers, or to the people they are close with who share their joys and sorrows.

The lesson, for me, was that we can't assume we know something about someone just because we have a few details. Ultimately, we are all on the outside looking in at everyone else, and can only know what's inside ourselves.

Recent events in my own life have made this lesson even more true, or more important. No matter how long you know someone, you really don't know what's in their head, and shouldn't assume you do. Maybe if we all spent a little more time listening to others and a little less telling our own stories, we could at least make the glass that keeps us all boxed in to our own little windows of perception a bit less hazy.