Things that stay with you.

[penfriends]

What random things have struck a chord with you?

Mine is a Postsecret card that said:

"Everyone who knew me before 9/11 think I'm dead"

I read it years ago but I think about that person. Family, parents, siblings.

Just one sentence but it's stayed with me fore years.

I've been thinking about this thread so much. forever everyone who's been through so much.

I realised I have so many things that are joyous that stay with me despite picking negative things to post. And the I realised how very very fortunate I am to have a generally very very happy life where despite the large looking negatives I can gloss over them most of the time.

Aged 14 as self conscious about my changing body as could be, I had my school skirt on and was sitting in a class. A girl I barely knew from another form was sitting close by she leans over and says " don't you feel embarrassed by your legs looking like that", I shrugged and she says "Well, I would".

Don't know why that's stayed with me all these years.

Also my mum preparing to leave my stepdad and taking my step brother with her, I'm in tears and i turn to her and say, "what about me"? She says "well you're old enough to look after yourself now". I was 19 in absolute bits. although old enough I was in no way emotionally old enough to move out.
Thankfully I lived with step dad until I was 27, had finished my degree and was able to get a full time job. He was a godsend through what was a horrible time for him too!

Me, aged 10, a Northerner with a scholarship to girls boarding school down south. Other girls saying "She sounds like Hilda Ogden (Coronation Street circa 1968)". I lost my Northern accent within one week.

And finding my dad (who had moved away and ceased contact). We arranged to meet. He was drunk and kept getting my name wrong. I stayed a little while and when I left, as I walked away, I said to myself "I won't see him again" (not in any nasty way just "that's how it is). I didn't, he died several years after that.

About 18 months ago when I worked in the city centre there was a lady who came in regularly and we always had a chat. Her 13 you daughter was in the children's hospital undergoing treatment for cancer. One weekend she came in and told me her daughter was having a treatment that was the absolute last chance for her and I'd it didn't work, that was it :(
I never saw her again after that and think about her every single day, hoping the reason she never came back was that they had gone home rather than the alternative. My 3yo nephew is having aggressive chemo currently. This lady was such a brave and stoic woman and I often think about her amazing attitude towards the whole thing when I start feeling a bit overwhelmed about his treatment. I believe her strength is helping me stay strong for my sister and her beautiful boy

"If you are afraid yet still go forward, then you are truly brave"

I read this somewhere and for the life of me can't remember where, but it stuck with me. I sent it to my dad after he had major surgery as he was so so nervous about it.

Stand behind me, I'll protect you

This phrase. I think I've waited my whole life for someone to say this to me.

Advice for marriage: be kind to one another.
Given to us on our wedding day. It has stuck with me through the occasional downs that every marriage goes through and is the best advice I've ever received.

In the early days of my relationship with DH, one of his friends told me that DH is "one of the good guys".
It was a throwaway comment but I've never forgotten it. He was absolutely right.

Late one evening at Euston station after a really awful day, a homeless woman approached begging for money. I thoughtlessly put my hand up (in a stop gesture) and said something along the lines of leave me alone, I've had a shitty day.
She said you should try living on the streets, then you'll know what shitty is.
I've never felt so ashamed in my life. I apologised and have her what was in my purse (about a tenner) but I still feel ashamed to think of how snotty and privileged I must seem.
I donate monthly now to Shelter, but still, we all take so much for granted don't we?

'You are enough. You are so enough. It's unbelievable how enough you are.' - general quote

Over a year ago I was stood the bus stop and someone walked past and said move your fat arse fatty I laugh about it to people but inside it hurts a little.

I'm a size 12 so not even that big but ive been dieting ever since

"Time is the currency of love" - from a fortune cookie about 20 years ago!

It's what helped me have the courage to take 6 months unpaid leave at the end of my second maternity leave, to hang out with my babies.

Strangelookingparasite it was odd because we're not an emotionally open family at all. She said it because we were generally talking about why I was so sad and I sort of broke down and told her I had finished with ex but scared I would go back. I told her how I felt useless and scared of being on my own. I think she was exasperated at first but when she saw the state i was in and realised the front I had been putting on for everyone she went into tiger mum mode. I hadn't seen it since I was very young - she said lots more but that's the bit I remember.

Bad..my mum calling me a disgusting little bastard and telling me noone liked me. On several occasions from about age 7 to 14.

Uncle telling me he would beat me up if I didn't solve rubiks cube that day..age 10.

My best friend at primary telling me she didn't want to be friends any more as she had new friends.

Good: colleague telling me she was so happy I was pregnant because I'm such a nice person.

Same uncle telling me DD would be just fine as she had me for a mum (strange family)

CatThiefKeith, I managed to hold back tears reading this thread but your post just sent me over the edge. Poor little baby

My DD (then 21) had been suffering from anorexia for two years. It got pretty bad and out whole lives went on hold for a while. We had a screaming row one day after an abortive visit to a specialist mental health facility and out of the blue she agreed to follow a healthy eating plan that I would enforce.

We had a sticky few weeks where even eating a small slice of toast could take an hour of hysteria, persuasion, supervision, abuse. Then one morning she sat down to eat a boiled egg and soldiers and as she took the first tiny bite she involuntarily went 'mmmm'. Such a tiny thing, I didn't even dare remark on it in case she saw it as 'weakness', but even writing about it makes me cry.

One sad, one happy:

"Your son's got cystic fibrosis."

The sonographer at DS2's scan: "There's a definite scrotum!"

Me too Tatiana.

Charley I'm bigger than you!

Thank you. She passed away in 2007. I still can't listen to Chasing Cars without seeing that moment in my minds eye and bursting into tears.

Telling my children their dad was dying. Telling them he had died. I relive that every day.

Seeing my then 12 year old son hug his father's body in the funeral home, crying and begging him to come back.

I have so many I could mention over my dad. I could write a book.

So much love and to all of you

Another positive... I admitted to a friend that I was really struggling with DS and that I'm just not a natural mother. He just looked at me and said 'but don't you see? You're the best kind of mother. You find it hard and you struggle but every day you get up and try and you do the best by your boy. Do you not think that that effort you put in makes you just as wonderful mother as someone who it comes naturally to?'

Also another friend, told him I felt like running away and never looking back 'but you're not going to do that' he had absolute faith in me that I'd do the right thing and I wouldn't give up, and he was right.

Mainly negative for me.

"Are you a bit thick?" Step grandad

"Who's going to look at you?" Step grandad

"Why would anyone spike your drink?" Step grandad

Funnily enough, me and my step grandad get on very well and my nan tells me how much he thinks of me. I don't think he realises how much an effect words have on a child.

"Are you thick as shit?" Dad

"I had a dream last night where you committed suicide, why don't you make it come true?" Twat at school who was uuterly awful to me and knew full well I was feeling suicidal.

"We all have problems but we don't sit crying about them" cow at school where I sat for a whole hour crying and not one person asked how I was, even my best friend who was sat right beside me. Scared the hell out of them when I disappeared after.

"My problems are way worse than yours" said by cow at school who's sister had had a miscarriage and I was going through some really hard stuff to do with being abandoned by my mother when I was little (as she knew full well).

"It's unlikely you'll ever have children without help" (thankfully that doctor was wrong).

"I have respect her wishes and not give you her address" said to me by my grandad about my 'mother' who wants nothing to do with me.

Same thing been said by a few people "it's amazing how normal/well you have turned out given your past" I like that one.

"You look beautiful mummy" often said by either DC when I buy something new or dress up.

"You are very pretty" said by my uncle more than once, as I've always felt ugly and worthless, the fact he is the only person to tell me this has always stayed with me.

I will never forgive the Headteacher who at sports day who, when my son won 1st place in a little race in reception over the microphone said his name laughing as though she could not believe he would ever win anything. (My son has Dyspraxia)

Similarly I will not forget (or forgive for the stress) the conversation where a teacher had said at open evening "your son has autism but I don't have time to talk about it" (note to any teachers on this thread - please do not ever do this). Years down the line - actually he does not have autism.