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share a positive experience from your life.

undead

undead

Greenlighter
Joined
Sep 23, 2001
Messages
7,845
Location
Ohia, Heartland of Amurca
your experience doesn't have to be euphoric, but maybe something that you just think back on and smile. my first experience was just triggered by the "50 states" thread since we're now doing connecticut and my experience took place in connecticut. :)

i went to visit some friends (and fellow bluelighters) who graciously let me stay at their house(s) while i was in town. one day, the couple that i stayed with both had to work so they said i was welcome to kick it at their house while they were gone. well i decided to hit up a golf course and already knew which one due to some research before leaving for vacation. i went to tunxis plantation which had two 18 hole courses, a 9 hole course, an ENORMOUS practice green, a nice driving range, and a beautiful clubhouse with a full bar, projector screens, etc. i was alone and went to the driving range first to get some swings in. i saw there was another guy hitting the range while he waited for his tee time by himself (probably in his upper 30s) and asked if he wanted a partner so that a.) we could speed things up, and b.) it might make for some fun and good conversation. turns out he was actually waiting for 4 other buddies to show up, but he kindly invited me to play with their group anyways. i was a bit intimidated since now i was in a group of 5 guys who were probably better golfers than i was!

i actually ended up playing really well and felt really comfortable. all the guys in their group were also HUGE sport junkies and knew a great deal. we sat in the bar for a while after our round of golf and they bought me a beer. asked where abouts i was from i said "ohio" and they talked a bunch about ohio sports. i mentioned i was a big hockey fan, turns out, the one guy in the group was actually a member of the hartford whalers personnel and knew a lot of players for the carolina hurricanes (where the whalers moved to) so we talked a lot about hockey. they got me another beer before i finally had to politely turn a third down.

those guys were some of the nicest people i've ever met on my vacation journeys! i've made a lot of friends by traveling, but i've also met a small share of people who i knew at the time that i'd probably never see again. they fell into that latter group. tremendously nice people who made me feel very at home while playing a gorgeous course and talking about the things i love the most, sports! all while sharing a few beers... that were payed for by my temporary cohorts as they insisted "you're on vacation!". it was truly a great experience. :)
 
On my 13th birthday my grandma and grandpa drove 12 hours to surprise me with a refurbished antique chest. My grandma has been an artist her whole life and is excellent at refurbishing antiques. She showed me the 'before' pictures... I could tell it took her months to fix it. She made a chest for all her grandchildren on their 13th birthdays. I had forgotten about it though so it was a genuine surprise. I felt really loved that day. <3 :)
 
when i was little my family took in a stray dog from a family campsite. she was our first dog, and she ended up getting deathly sick from worms (i think maybe heartworms actually, but i'm not positive). anyhow, my dad took her to the vet hospital, and a few days later he came home from work and told my brother and me that she had to be put to sleep. i had never heard that phrase before, so the obvious question was "For how long?" and it felt like i got ran over by a mac truck when he said "forever." i remember that part so clear; the only thing that stopped me from crying that night was ice cream.

so a few days later he came home from work again and told us that when the vet went to put her down, she had the strength to lift up her head. since this was a huge improvement, the vet gave her more time and treatment, and as my dad was telling us this, into the room trotted our dog! omg, it was one of the happiest days of my childhood! she lived for about 5 years after that i think, and ended up having to be euthanized for congestive heart failure. but i was around 10 then and went with her that time.
 
The day I realized meth wasn't making me happy anymore, and that it was time to really and truly quit out of my own volition . I began the process of rebuilding my life and reclaiming myself that day and I never looked back.
 
Going to the pond to play hockey this past winter...only 4 of us and no nets.

We got to the pond and started skating around, and we saw some other people playing. Turns out it was some old friends from ELEMENTARY school. Had not seen them in years. Blast from the past man...we used to play there together when we were little every day almost.

It was pretty amazing. We had some beers, shared a doob and played for 2 and a half hours. And now we are all updated (a couple of us don't have facebook)

And positive experience #2 Getting let go by OPP after recovering 1.5lbs of high grade in my trunk. Really down to earth cop.
 
^ wow to BOTH experiences!!!

i'm jealous of the pond hockey experience. never had that luxury here. :(

i have a creek that i can skate in the winter when it freezes over, but it has to be a COLD winter in order to freeze it, but when it does... i get my game on!!! by myself. :(
 
Last year I had to take a course that was a nice touch-feely human side of medicine thing. For the end of the course, we had to do a reflection writing or piece of art. I did something I hadn't done in years: I came up with a poem. I wrote it one boring class period when I wasn't paying much attention to the lecture, and didn't really think that much of it. When I read it for my small group, though, it was a real hit. One guy in my small group who was in charge of the ceremony for the end of cadaver class asked me to read it there. So I did. I will forever remember that ensuing evening as one of the few times in my life I've felt like a complete fucking rockstar. The poem ended up getting published in a couple places, including our yearbook. It was at that time that I began to feel it was only a matter of time before I wake up one day and write a book.
 
when i went to new jersey and new york to visit relatives, we walked around a lot. what really struck me was how kind all the poor black people were. the clean-shaven white guys in suits toting briefcases looked so emotionless as they passed by looking only at where they were going like the world was this cesspool they were heroes to dare walk through. at one point, i found myself in some fucked up hood, lost and walking past an overpass support with a faded bloodstain on it and wreath in front and some guys that looked like they had barely enough money to buy lunch pointed out which direction i should run in to get the hell out of jersey. i also saw the twin towers on that trip, for the first and last time.
 
Ryan, you definitely start the most interesting threads.

OK, one of my positive experiences was a 20-x mile hike with my friend C. This was in the Northern California Redwoods about this time of year, so it was soaking wet and it smelled amazing. We'd had big storms and this was a huge rugged park so lots of trails were closed. The closures were dramatic - multiple redwoods with 12' diameter trunks fallen across paths, streams re-routed so the trails ended in stream beds, enormous landslides.

C. and I always took intense hikes. A short hike was 10-12 miles and he lived on Mt. Tam so we were out there all the time. This hike was going to be epic and we planned it that way: hardest trails, longest route and rainy, cold conditions. We share this great camaradarie when it comes to outdoor stuff. We push each other and have saved each others' lives dramatically once each. So part of what made this day so great was sharing it with him.

So, wanting to enjoy ourselves and not worried about erosion b/c of the conditions, we disregarded closed trails signs, used a compass to navigate (no sun, and mostly pouring rain), climbed over these huge fallen trees, followed flooded streambeds and bushwhacked our way towards the west. This park's part of the Coastal Range so it was a lot of vertical. We started at 6am and by the time we descended the final path (we found one), it was about 10:30pm. Got lost a couple of times and had to use the compass to extract ourselves from the forest. We were happily exhausted and we were almost back.

Except for this wide, shallow (1') stream that blocked our exit. Shit was flooded so the small valley that was the way out was completely filled with water. It was either slosh through or try to jump from tiny wiggly rock to tiny wiggly rock for about 50-60 yds. We'd been rained on all day so we were wet but I had dry feet still and wanted to keep them that way for the drive home. The rock jumping was going to be almost impossible, but wtf?

So C, who's extremely agile, started out jumping from rock to rock but fell in after a dozen or so and just sloshed through. I was so tired but so exhilarated by our super-survival hike that I really wanted to get across that stream without getting my feet wet. And I did it. Jumped from tiny wiggly rock to tiny wiggly rock, almost running. It felt awesome. Almost like flying. (I've never even flown in a dream so it was a pretty unusual sensation.) It was the perfect physical end to a day of physical exertion.

There was another reason that it felt so good and I didn't realize it until I just wrote this post (shift to TDS---->):

I was raised with the mantra of being neurologically damaged and awkward. I'm not but I didn't figure that out til I was like 30 or something. I've played competitive sports. I'm not close to perfect but I'm athletic and my balance is ok.

It's just that my dad's a freak. He told me, and anyone within hearing distance, that I had neurological damage. See, I was adopted so he expected me to be fucked up and assessed everything I did against "normal" child behavior. Aloud and ceaselessly. The whole "neurological damage" thing started when I was four and learning to swim in a neighbor's pool. My right leg kicked harder than my left…reindeer poop scooperhence, Neurological Damage!!

It was a favorite family dinner time topic. Very weird. Even a dinner party topic of conversation. I was visiting at age 25 and there were some relatives and what-have-you there for dinner and sure enough, here comes the whole ND thing again.

When I navigated those fucking rocks I wasn't thinking about that. I wasn't really thinking about anything after that amazing hike. I just did it. And it felt great. It wasn't until I just wrote this post that I realized one of the reasons that it made me feel like a fucking superhero.

ps. The day ended beautifully. After we had negotiated the stream, we were walking back a mile or two to the car. The sun had gone down hours ago. There was a full moon with fast-moving Halloween clouds. The California coast, so all silvery and ghostly from the fog. We're walking and we see this huge group of shadows, obviously creatures and much taller than we were. We kept quiet, moved slowly while the shadows moved towards us. We walked silently through a large herd of elk.

Elk are really fucking big.

tl;dr hike, best friends/powerful bonds, challenging conditions, epic acrobatic sequence, psychological meaning of it all, elk.
 
vibby I love that story :) <3

ryan, great thread!!!!


I have so many nice moments, as we all do of course. Just a few:

  • Playing (grass) hockey in high school, I was the top goal scorer for the season and we made the grand final. I scored a goal in the 1st half, which was great. Then towards the end of the 2nd half I scored another goal and everyone went nuts, we'd definitely won!! All the parents on the sideline were cheering and hugging each other, and my dad and another father ran on to the field and hugged us and were dancing around, and had to be told by the referee to "kindly remove themselves from the field" so we could resume play =D

  • Me and my best friend went for a week's holiday to a tropical resort in Queensland Australia a few weeks after we finished the final exams for high school. It was the first time I'd been away basically on my own, as an "adult" (I'd only just turned 17) so it was a really cool feeling, being done with high school forever, starting the journey of our adult lives etc.
    One particular amazingly warm and sunny day, me and my best friend walked down the beach and around the point on the rocks, through the surrounding bush/forest, up the cliff on to the plateau, and we both just sat/lay there in the sunshine on the rocks listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers. I felt so free :)
    Now of course whenever I listen to RHCP's album "Californication" I go straight back there <3

  • The moment I realised I was in love with my boyfriend: we'd been together for about 2 months and had been completely inseparable the whole time. We were at his mum's place for his birthday dinner, and I was watching him play with his mum's 2 big dogs, just watching him, and all of a sudden it hit me like a tonne of bricks in the chest and flooded through my body: I LOVE him!! <3

Good times :)
 
^That made me feel old. You were 17 when Californication came out :D

A few good memories:

~ When I was younger we lived for a time in Yosemite. We'd go camping as a family and this one time my dad packs us all in our Jeep and we head out . He drove us up a mountain with no roads- we were literally driving through woods, and up a mountainside. (Scary and now looking back on it, kinda dumb of him) But we get to this place at the top of a mountain and there was an old abandoned cabin. My dad tied up our food a ways from our camp (bears) and we heard cows- like, wild cows! and my brother and I explored the old cabin. When inside the cabin the walls were wallpapered with old pin-up girls. I peeled very carefully a pin up girl drawing and kept it for years. I love the memory of that trip.

~One night after work I got a ride home from my room mate.......
We made a stop to pick up his brother......
It was dark but this REALLY tall, skinny guy with long black hair pulled back hops in the back seat and I turned around, smiled and introduced myself.
When he smiled back I fell MADLY in love :D
Now we've been together almost 8 years <3

~About 9 months after my husband and I got married I got the "need to move itch" (which I got often. Growing up we moved all the time and it became something I HAD to do.) My husband, my brother and I sold everything we owned, packed what we wanted to keep in our Toyota 4-Runner and drove over 2000 miles to an island in the pacific northwest. Drove through awful Texas, Oklahoma, saw wildfires in Kansas and fireworks being shot off in all directions driving through the plains towards Colorado...skirted around Denver, by the Rockies.....Saw Medicine Bow and could smell the strong scent of sage driving 5 hours across Wyoming- into Utah, passed the Devils Slide.....into Idaho (which was smelly and not so appealing).....through the corner of the Blue Mountains in Oregon and all across the state of Washington. It was awesome. There is little as invigorating as being totally free to go where you'd like and have nothing but time and open road.

~Picking out my Fuzzy Buttons.....she was in a home with- probably close to 100 cats. I went through almost every last one, after each room asking- are there any more? And finally we go out to this shed with cats not ready for a home yet and all the way in the back corner is my girl and I pointed and said "That's the one!" and they let me take her home, even though it was too early. <3

~Reconnecting with the ocean <3
 
i have a kind of corny one that i forgot about, but it was something that made me genuinely feel good. :)

i was playing in a soccer game about a year or two ago. the other team had a kid playing who was basically carrying the team, but he seemed like a really good dude, a team player, etc. i was playing defensive midfield and was covering him in our half of the field when the ball got kicked toward the other end. he took off and i noticed something shimmer on the ground. i seemed to be the only person who saw it. so, curiously, i checked it out and it was a small cross from a necklace, obviously it had come off this kids bling so rather than tell him and fuck up his efforts i put it in my pocket until i could get it to him during a stoppage. soon enough, though, he clenched for his necklace like he just realized it was missing, i saw him do it and told him "don't worry man, i got it." and gave him the cross. you could see the relief in his eyes, that thing was clearly important to him and sure he could have eventually found it, but the fact is, the second the dude panicked, i came through like a total bad ass. :D
 
^^ Awww man, that is such an awesome story!!! Very considerate of you to do that, not only to pick it up but then to wait for the appropriate moment to give it to him so as to not distract his play :)
 
Sitting around the campfire with my father, sisters, uncles and friends of the family talking about life, death, and everything in between. :)
 
why, thank you n3o! =D

GM... i have a similar, but probably less deep conversation, type of story. i came home from a buddy's house at about 3am one morning and my dad was awake. him and i have always had a great relationship, but we've never been too talkative. neither of us have ever been the type to share our feelings or anything like that, but he had woken up in the middle of the night that time around and when i got home he asked me if i wanted to have a cup of coffee (which at the time i wasn't a coffee drinker) so i said yeah and we sat down, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze at 3am. it was pretty cool actually. :)
 
the friendship that enabled me to travel throughout Europe on two separate occasions, ultimately culminating in me traversing the Alps in Switzerland and Italy for a week with my best friend/pseudo-brother and his father.

Waking up shivering, covered in a scratchy wool blanket in sub freezing temperatures, then exiting the cabin, alone, in my long underwear, and watching the sun emerge from behind a snow-capped mountain some hundred miles deeper into the range. As I watched my breath precipitate in front of me, I remembered that I was alive.
 
I was walking to the station one time, and saw an old wire haired man on the street, asking for money. Instead of sitting on the street with his cap in front of him, eyes down, he was darting from person to person, trying to talk to them - as they kept walking he'd run along next to them for a second, trying to get them to notice him. It's hard to explain - it wasn't aggressive behaviour, just desperate, and so sad - so sad that to everyone walking past he just wasn't even worthy of existence.

Of course I just walked past, like I always do - that well practiced, eyes down, unseeing walk. But something about him just grabbed me, and a few metres down I stopped, and walked into a shop. I checked my wallet for coins, but I didn't have any, only a $20 note. I'm not usually the type to give money to beggars, but I walked back and gave it to him.

He was shocked at first, but jumped up and down with excitement when he realised I was giving it to him. He said he was trying to make $50 for a night at the hostel and he was halfway there now; I don't know if he was lying, and I don't really care. But he grabbed my hands and looked me right in the eyes and said 'god bless you' and I knew he meant it, and it stands out as one of the most moving experiences of my life. It wasn't about the money, just connecting with another human being on a basic level. I dunno, I just hope it made him as happy as it did me.
 
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