Anonymous wrote:I met an American middle-aged woman randomly in a restaurant in Switzerland, she was with her teenaged son. She had moved to Switzerland as a young woman and married, then divorced, a Swiss man. She latched on to me and my mother who was with me, we even met up the next day. She was lonely for the U.S. but no longer really had any connection to the country and couldn't go back without leaving her children who were totally Swiss behind. I came close years later to marrying someone in another country and would have had to settle in his country. This story really stuck with me and tipped me against that choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I met a woman waiting for a train. I was with my daughter (who is adopted from another ethnicity, so it is sort of obvious). The woman gently asked if she was adopted. I said yes. She asked if she had been an orphan/lived in an orphanage before I got her. I said yes. She asked how old she was when she got adopted. I said 1. Then I asked how old she was when she got adopted. She said she was never adopted.

The silence hung in the air. I asked, "Well do you have a husband or children of your own now (she looked to be in her 30's)". She said "No."

I was not sure how to respond. The thought of going all through life with literally no family was just very hard for me to imagine.

How did this change your life?

Anonymous wrote:I was at a dinner party at university and had one of those short, intense conversations that sometimes come up. Lasted less than half an hour, in the dark corner of a rented restaurant/bar.

It was a bunch of philosophers and humanities types. I was talking to an older woman professor about medical ethics. I talked about my grief over letting down my mother as she was dying -- sepsis from a UTI, breast cancer treatment, and I as I medical student didn't pick up on it fast enough.

This still haunted me. She pointed out that if my mother was septic enough to go that fast (died that night), nobody likely could have saved her, and that my mother probably wanted to spend the time with me, not as an object treated by me, anyway.

Damn. About three total sentences, and then the conversation moved on. But I let go of grief that had haunted me for years.

Anonymous wrote:Over the last year, I gained about 40-50 pounds. It had to do with my DC going away to college and my DH getting cancer. Anyways, I was using food to self-soothe and I could not break this, every night I would swear to do better the next day but..just could not. My body has no upper limit of weight, so I was watching the scale go up and up. Nothing worked and it got so bad I had very little options in my closet; I wore the same few things (washed of course) over and over.

Someone posted on DCUM that one of the national parks was releasing hotel rooms for NEXT YEAR that night.

I had always wanted to go there, and when the kids were little we had a whole plan to go there, but had to cancel because we had to move to DC for DH's job.

So I stayed up and got the hotel room. It will be DH and my first empty-nester trip; reminds me of hikes we did before the kids.

Suddenly, my willpower came back! I'm super-excited to go, and know I have to drop the weight in order to do the long hikes. But I'm not discouraged because I have enough time to lose weight slowly and not make my daily life too hard. I now have the willpower to intermittent fasting (I just eat dinner) and am not eating bread/pasta, not snacking, and the weight is slowly coming off. Most importantly, even when I'm stuck a bit on a plateau, I can tell I'm not going to lose my resolve.

I'm so grateful to that OP. Thank you, mystery OP!

Anonymous wrote:I had a bad breakup with a boyfriend...who worked in finance and yes, this matters. A post-doc where I was training said I need to date men in engineering like her husband. She said that's where the kind, sensitive, good- natured men are. I had never dated an engineer before. My husband of 20 years is an engineer. She was right!

Anonymous wrote:I was at a dinner party at university and had one of those short, intense conversations that sometimes come up. Lasted less than half an hour, in the dark corner of a rented restaurant/bar.

It was a bunch of philosophers and humanities types. I was talking to an older woman professor about medical ethics. I talked about my grief over letting down my mother as she was dying -- sepsis from a UTI, breast cancer treatment, and I as I medical student didn't pick up on it fast enough.

This still haunted me. She pointed out that if my mother was septic enough to go that fast (died that night), nobody likely could have saved her, and that my mother probably wanted to spend the time with me, not as an object treated by me, anyway.

Damn. About three total sentences, and then the conversation moved on. But I let go of grief that had haunted me for years.

Anonymous wrote:Over the last year, I gained about 40-50 pounds. It had to do with my DC going away to college and my DH getting cancer. Anyways, I was using food to self-soothe and I could not break this, every night I would swear to do better the next day but..just could not. My body has no upper limit of weight, so I was watching the scale go up and up. Nothing worked and it got so bad I had very little options in my closet; I wore the same few things (washed of course) over and over.

Someone posted on DCUM that one of the national parks was releasing hotel rooms for NEXT YEAR that night.

I had always wanted to go there, and when the kids were little we had a whole plan to go there, but had to cancel because we had to move to DC for DH's job.

So I stayed up and got the hotel room. It will be DH and my first empty-nester trip; reminds me of hikes we did before the kids.

Suddenly, my willpower came back! I'm super-excited to go, and know I have to drop the weight in order to do the long hikes. But I'm not discouraged because I have enough time to lose weight slowly and not make my daily life too hard. I now have the willpower to intermittent fasting (I just eat dinner) and am not eating bread/pasta, not snacking, and the weight is slowly coming off. Most importantly, even when I'm stuck a bit on a plateau, I can tell I'm not going to lose my resolve.

I'm so grateful to that OP. Thank you, mystery OP!

Anonymous wrote:I am from a small rural community in WV.

I went to Harvard for law school. I attended a dinner at a professor’s home and offhandedly complimented one of his antiques, a wood burning stove/oven. Mentioned my grandma said she couldn’t bake bread right in an electric one.

At that point I learned how I could never be part of the “elite.” He and his wife proceeded to grill me about how amazing it was to witness “culture” and “art” like we don’t have those. Then grilled me about why I don’t have an accent (newsflash: because bigots like you think I’m stupid if I use my natural accent).

Thanks, Bob. I’m doing fine.

Anonymous wrote:I am from a small rural community in WV.

I went to Harvard for law school. I attended a dinner at a professor’s home and offhandedly complimented one of his antiques, a wood burning stove/oven. Mentioned my grandma said she couldn’t bake bread right in an electric one.

At that point I learned how I could never be part of the “elite.” He and his wife proceeded to grill me about how amazing it was to witness “culture” and “art” like we don’t have those. Then grilled me about why I don’t have an accent (newsflash: because bigots like you think I’m stupid if I use my natural accent).

Thanks, Bob. I’m doing fine.