Sweetness that changed you

[Perry Winkle]

Post the good things people have done and things that have happened that have changed you, for better or worse.

I'll start.

My friend Ethan is an illustrator and really creative all around. He was always encouraged to express himself and has, seemingly, very little difficulty getting what's inside him out into whatever medium he's targeting.

Recently I started trying to nurture my own creativity and self-expression. He's unfailingly supportive of my creative endeavors. He always tells me what he really thinks about the things I've done and gives me advice like "process over product."

(I had another tale to put here but I'll save it for later, in case the thread stagnates.)

[glatt]

My parent nurtured me and supported me and unconditionally loved me and provided a stable but interesting home environment where I was able to grow up to be a relatively well adjusted adult. I really owe almost everything I am and have to the good job they did raising me.

[Elspode]

About 30 odd years ago, I had an old girlfriend tell me that I was an ass...hurtful, arrogant, egotistical, self-centered and generally a jerk. However, she told me all of this with love and friendship. She gave me specific examples of my behavior that had been hurtful to others, including herself, and never once got angry or vengeful about it.

I took it deeply to heart. She was and is a person whom I care for and respect, intelligent and generally wonderful in most every way. I have spent the subsequent years trying very, very hard to feel and subsequently project humility, consideration and respect. I hope that I have, in some measure, succeeded.

Of all the debts I owe to a person in my life, this is perhaps the most important, because her kindness on that day probably has saved me from a life of complete loneliness and emptiness.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by glatt

My parent nurtured me and supported me and unconditionally loved me and provided a stable but interesting home environment where I was able to grow up to be a relatively well adjusted adult. I really owe almost everything I am and have to the good job they did raising me.

Amen, glatt! Though I have a long way to go, I was blessed with wonderful parents and brothers.

My sis-in-law told me a couple days ago that I am a jewel and I'm the only one who doesn't see it. She's an amazing person who has done more in her life than I'll ever dream, and it meant a lot to me. Though I've been told similar over the years, I'm waiting for it to be known in my own heart...then again, maybe that's part of it.

[Elspode]

Well, of course you're a jewel, silly. Would I have been virtually trying to get into your virtual knickers otherwise?

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Well, of course you're a jewel, silly. Would I have been virtually trying to get into your virtual knickers otherwise?

Eh, you say that to all the jewels, er, girls.

[Elspode]

You *are* having a bad day, aren't you? I'm so sorry...

And I don't try to get into the virtual knickers of *all* the girls. Really. This is one of the ways that I demonstrate that I am a poor objectifier of women...selectivity.

[Shawnee123]

Not the WORST day...that darn chat thing had me going, but I think I've sufficiently ingrained the "oh lord, Shawnee is pissed...run away, run away" (Insert maniacal laugh and hand wringing here.)

Hey, objectify away...I have nothing else going on. :p

[Clodfobble]

I met my best friend to-this-day my freshman year in high school. Up to that point, I mostly did not have friends in school, period. I wasn't just a little awkward, I was a huge nerd with very few social skills who was more than a little annoying to those around me. She, being a social butterfly with a good heart, took me on as a "project"--which sounds patronizing, but it was honestly the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me, and it was really life-changing. Like Elspode, I would have been a much lonelier person for the rest of my life if she hadn't decided to help me along. Nowadays our kids play together several times a week.

[DanaC]

When I was working in adult lit. my teamleader/co-tutor and I were looking into full teaching qual courses for me (recent legislation meant that anyone working in the field needed to have a level 4 teaching qualification by 2010). We talked for a bit and I was considering tagging the one year top-up qual onto a straight academic degree, rather than doing the pure teaching route.

She was so supportive. She told me all about her experience being a mature university student and really boosted my confidence on it. The thing that totally struck me though, was that she told me I was a 'born academic'. She said she could see me going off into academia and just never coming out again *grins*. Having put the academia bee into my bonnet she then persuaded me not to go for the easier-to-get-into university, but to try for a respected one.

It was such a freeing thing, to have a boss(and friend) who a) could and would talk at length about philosophy, history and literature, b) saw more value in spending three years learning something with passion and drive, than the same amount of time gaining a qualification to prove what I already knew I could do, and c) saw in me something I had stopped seeing in myself.

Those conversations with Christine set me onto a new path and for the first time in my life, I am doing what comes most naturally to me

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by Elspode

About 30 odd years ago, I had an old girlfriend tell me that I was an ass...hurtful, arrogant, egotistical, self-centered and generally a jerk. However, she told me all of this with love and friendship. She gave me specific examples of my behavior that had been hurtful to others, including herself, and never once got angry or vengeful about it.

When you find something precious on the inside of someone. When you find a friend who you can't /don't want to walk away from you proceed to rock someones world. I hope our(my partner and I) outcome has simular results.


I had been alone for along time. I meet my poetry partner online who turned out to be my best friend in real life...after three years of being alone without boyfriend, or any friends for that matter I determined to have a healthy social life because it was the 'right thing to do' when preaching to a kid about social things. I did not want to be a hypocrite so I told myself the next person who asked me out , whom I didn't get red flags over or feel like running away from I would go out with.

I met that person and there was a cosmic connection. This person is someone totally opposite of me. He is loud, brash, rude,egotistical and laughs constantly. He has a temper but so do I. He brings so much of living into my life. I am even on occassion slighly overwhelmed and need to take a couple steps back and he with all understanding accepts it. This is sweetness one dosn't have to be in love to appreciate. We appreciate each others gifts.