I bought a plant.
It sounds ridiculous, but after leaving an abusive relationship, I felt completely disconnected from… everything.
One day, I saw this lonely palm-sized succulent on clearance at Walmart. I picked it up without thinking. At home, I Googled how to care for it. Watered it as needed. Moved it to sunlight. I watched it grow—slowly, clumsily, but it grew.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but keeping that plant alive made me believe maybe I could keep myself alive too. That tiny act of nurturing something was the first time I felt hopeful I could heal.
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Deciding to run a website for my daughters soccer team which ended up with me meeting my wife and moving to the US
Cell division.
Before that damn egg ever started dividing, I should’ve turned right around and shot back up my dad’s urethra.
That’s what the kids book The Secret Garden’s all about. By caring for something or someone else, we nurture ourselves:-)
Going to hang out with some work friends.
I was super shy and anxious, so when my friend invited me to hang out at the mall with her and two other of my work friends, I agreed. I had a lot of fun and talked everyone into taking a photo in a photobooth so I could remember the day.
One of the friends from the hangout is now my boyfriend. I couldn’t be happier
Went to my first dog show
At about age 12 in middle school, I chose French as my foreign language option. Not because I really cared for it, but mostly because I heard the Spanish teacher was mean and the French teacher gave out candy and played games in class. Anyway, I enjoyed it and kept taking French classes through high school, then college, and when I was 22 I decided to take a 10 month contract as a teaching assistant in France. Been there ever since.
Looking back, that choice of a language at 12 completely rerouted my life— now at 33, I live in France, married a Frenchie and I’ve got a Franco-American baby! Funny to think how different my life would be if I’d taken Spanish instead🙃!
I had recently moved to a new area and was still looking for part time work. I missed the turn to the grocery store. The next turn was to a restaurant and I thought, why not go in and apply there. I did and it turned out one of their servers had just given their notice that day. I was hired on the spot.
I ended up meeting several of my long term adult friends one way or another through the connections made at that darn place, two of who have had a direct impact on my career. It’s been nearly 15 years and that missed turn affected my life in so many unforeseen ways.
After I got fired I panic reapplied to a job I had left 3 months earlier.
I got a call back almost immediately and I took it.
That’s where I met my wife and the entire trajectory of my life changed.
I on a whim decided to go with my “group of friends” to a meeting for new members of an organization at my university. Became a member met many people, became VP of the organization, and met my best friend. I’m not even friends with the original people I went with, but gained my closest best friend and we’ve been friends for 7-8 years now.
I had a plant too OP! I didn’t know how to care for it very well. Figured my window with lots of sun was great and couldn’t figure out why it was dying (too much sun). So many shoots died off, but I refused to give up on it and tried to nurse it back to health.
Got dumped incredibly unexpectedly because my ex thought a communication problem (that only she understood and couldn’t explain sufficiently to me) was enough to end a 2 year relationship on a zoom call with a couples therapist. I was heartbroken and still am, especially because I’d moved cross country to live with her 6 months prior and would’ve bent over backwards, gone to couples therapy, etc etc.
But I kept taking care of the plant even when I couldn’t take care of myself. The plant has grown from the two tiny, barely-surviving shoots left after I got all the dead brown stuff out of the soil to a beautiful 6-7 shoots and new ones have sprung up recently. I think it’s shown me that stubbornness and refusal to give up on things can be good for things that accept care.
I’ll be moving the plant from the house I found for us to my new terrible basement apartment soon and putting it in a window that does NOT get direct sunlight this time. lol.
Reading a popular book series 🙂
I went to Starbucks for the first time in 2013 and sat next to a stranger as I began to read my new copy of Systematic Theology (was from a Southern Baptist childhood that was heavily invested in going to church and aspired to become a minister and was always curious about deeper topics within the faith). The stranger said “that’s some heavy reading” and I agreed and it kicked off a long conversation on the topic as he was a man of the faith as well and knew many theological things. He invited me to his home group Bible study where I’d gotten to know him and his community very well and a year later I was on a plane ride to Ghana for a mission trip. I discovered how much I loved getting to teach children and went again four years later, and then to Mexico a year after that trip. Time went on and the closer it got to the beginning of Covid and it’s peak, I began to have strong doubts within that community of friends and those of the faith in general because of the widespread tantrum being thrown in response to the call for social distancing because in my mind, Jesus would encourage this sort of sacrifice and more if it meant the healing of our neighbors (and enemies) during this trying time, but the Christian consensus insisted otherwise. I found myself cut off from most of the friend group I fostered through the years and it devastated my heart and soul that this community I longed for for so long just disappeared over this and now I find myself being agnostic and pessimistic.
I went to a new dance studio and there were a couple girls there from my school. I didn’t know it since I hadn’t lived there long, but one of them lived down the road from me. Her mom told me I would be taking her home now. And she’s still my best friend 23 years later.
I dislike gardening, but I went with a friend to do a stint volunteering by removing weeds(trees) at a nature sanctuary.
Two decades later I now run group and we have done 20,000hrs of work transforming the ecology of the area.
I guy I was casually seeing told me he had been seeing other people. It wasn’t a big deal because I wasn’t under the impression we were exclusive or anything. So I decided to go back on Tinder to see if I could meet someone else and matched with an amazing dude.
We’ve been married 9 years this year.
In my mid 20s, I was at a point in my life where I was a bit lost. I decided I wanted to try new things that made me anxious or scared, but I knew they were opportunities for growth. I decided to take a salsa and bachata dance class and that’s where I met my husband.
I was driving home one night and saw an orange cat. I put out into the universe that I wish I had an orange cat.
The next day, somebody walked into work and said hey, does anybody want an orange cat? Of course, I was immediately stunned and said yes. she continued with the story that this little baby kitten was under her porch and she was feeding him, but she was afraid that he would go into her barn and get hurt because of the horses. Somebody had dumped this little kitten on the road and he ended up at her house. When she finally caught him a couple weeks later, he became mine.
Fast-forward 13 years to today, and I just said to my little Lucy Lou, I saved you and you saved me, which I have been saying through every trauma that life can throw at me. All he wants is love, and that’s all he wanted since the day I brought him home. He and I are certainly soulmates!!