Pivotal moments in life.

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Vital Spark
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Pivotal moments in life.

Post by Vital Spark »

Mr.VS and I were chewing the cud (actually having a glass of champagne) the other night, talking about what we’d done so far in our lives, and why we’d made certain decisions when we did. It dawned on me that when we decided to pack up our lives in the UK and come to Thailand I was 36 and Mr.VS was 44 (average 40). When we made the decision to return to the UK I was 56 and Mr.VS 64 (average 60). It got me thinking about pivotal points in life, when you look at back at what you’ve done and look forward to what you’d like to do. The time just seems right for a change. Working on the same pattern, our next one is due when I’m 76 an Mr.VS is 84 – I think backpacking in outer Mongolia will probably not be on the cards… 😉

Does anyone else have these pivotal moments?

VS
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Bamboo Grove
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by Bamboo Grove »

This is a good one. I first went to China, when I was 25, had my 26th birthday on the trans-Siberian. Then when I was 29 I left Finland behind. My intention was to look around in China and maybe in Hong Kong and get a job there.. I arrived in the middle of Tian An Men -incident and I suppose, that made everything different. Instead of staying in China or Hong Kong, I headed to Thailand, where I stayed for the next 19 years.

At around 30 I got my teaching job in Bangkok, at around 40 I opened my restaurant at Bangkok. Just before my 50's my wife's health forced me to move back to Finland. Now two years short of my 60th birthday, let's see. This year saw a lot of changes. I had to move because of the mold in our apartment, my mum died just before Christmas, instead of being a classroom teacher, I started teaching only languages. Well, there's still a long way to go until the year is over. Have to look on the bright side of the life. Hoping to retire (if I can manage that long) around my 70's.
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by hhfarang »

Lots of them; moving out on my own (in Memphis) at 19, moving to Saudi Arabia at 30, returning to live in California at 35 after 3 months tramping across Europe, scuba diving my way across the South Pacific for 14 weeks to celebrate my 40th birthday, taking on a Thai family at 46, moving to Florida at 50, then retiring at 55 to spend 10 years in Thailand... now back to the U.S. in North Carolina this time. Who knows what will happen next?
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by handdrummer »

The main moment was gong into the Army at 18. I went to Korea and that opened my mind. After that I began an odyssey that took me to live in 8 countries and travel in 20.
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by dtaai-maai »

Interesting thread, VS. Most of these pivotal moments were good - I may have left out some of the bad ones!

The first pivotal moment was nothing to do with me, really, but it was the school I went to when I was 11.
The next was spending my gap year in Bordeaux in '76. Then when that was over I decided not to take my place at uni and joined the immigration service.
Going to Pakistan as a visa officer age 29-31.
My house on the clifftops above Folkestone getting blown down in the Great Storm of 1987(?).
Taking medical retirement from immigration aged 40 and going to drama school.
Being a spectacularly unsuccessful professional actor for a few years before coming to Thailand on holiday when I was 46.
After a year here, deciding to stay and teach.
Coming back to the UK aged 60.
I think I'll be pretty happy if there are no more pivotal moments...
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by 404cameljockey »

dtaai-maai wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 5:10 am Being a spectacularly unsuccessful professional actor for a few years
I'd love more info on that but I guess you don't have an IMDB profile....

:lach:
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by 404cameljockey »

Life is full of moments where important things happen, but the one pivotal moment for me occurred late, when I was 47 and decided to become an expat, uprooting my family slowly over a period of a year and starting a new life. Four people's lives changed, for the better, and so the wheels had turned hugely for more than just me. 14 years later I still see that as the major turning point in my life, nothing else comes close apart from marriage (still going strong) at the (then) quite old age of 25. :D
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by RCer »

Good post VS.

My visit to your home may have saved my life. You remember the allergy I told you I had.

Within a day I began losing my voice, coughing, and wheezing, along with a very sore throat.

After 2 weeks of treatment all but the voice and sore throat wemt away. So I asked my Dr to run a Thyroid test which I needed yearly but had not been done in more than 2. Voice and sore throat are classic symptoms of Thyroid problems.

Fast forward to today, my Thyroid has been removed and am waiting for the hormone levels to drop so the cancer that was found at an early stage can be treated.
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by pharvey »

404cameljockey wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:13 am
dtaai-maai wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 5:10 am Being a spectacularly unsuccessful professional actor for a few years
I'd love more info on that but I guess you don't have an IMDB profile...
I did check...... :wink:

Certainly an interesting thread VS - "Pivotal Moments".... God, there must be so many! Thinking about the main ones, I guess the first would have to be my father's decision to take a job in Zambia as an Engineering Manager on a Copper Complex. I was just 6 weeks old at the time, so was brought up in Zambia (and later South Africa) until the age of around 10'ish when we moved back to the UK...... A wonderful experience and even for one so young, I had the "Travel Bug"!

Deciding to pursue engineering (like father like son), initially Process (Chemical) and then Mechanical - an industry/career which has taken me all over the world, to places good, bad and indifferent...... as I type, I'm sat in a site office on a Gold Mine in Verninskoye, Eastern Siberia (a little cooler than Hua Hin :( ).

Whilst working on a large project in China, my company asked if I would be willing to base myself there on a more permanent basis in order to support both the Chinese and Asian markets. I duly accepted and based myself in Chongqing where I lived for 15 years and where I met my beautiful now wife, the Long Haired General - some 18 years ago.

We're now living in the UK and on the next chapter - although obviously I still haven't lost the travel bug.... just yet anyway!



:cheers: :cheers:
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by PeteC »

Like Pharvey I've had so many as I moved a lot during my career to various cites in the US and abroad. The biggest event without a doubt was in 1968 while I was freezing to death in -60F windchill walking around nuke loaded B-52's and working at a nuclear bomb dump in a god forsaken place named Loring AFB, Maine that I screamed and begged for reassignment to Vietnam. That began my relationship with this part of the world both professionally and personally which continues today 50 years later. Pete :cheers:
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by Ratsima »

It was 1977. I was living in Mendocino County, California. My marriage had failed. My purchase of a cabin in the redwoods fell through. I hated my job. I quit and spent the next year traveling around the world; mostly overland. I never again lived in the mainland US. I spent a year in Hawaii, 26 years on Saipan and moved to Thailand when I retired in 2005.

That trip really opened my eyes and told me that an ordinary life in the US was not for me.
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Re: Pivotal moments in life.

Post by oakdale160 »

I was in Toronto at a meeting. The last presentation before lunch looked to be boring, so I went for a walk in the Financial district where the hotel was situated. Suddenly it started to rain very heavily. I had no coat or brolly so looking for shelter I saw a Pub and I went in I ordered a pie and a pint and while the girl was drawing my pint I looked around to see if I knew anybody. Stupid, I had never lived in TO and knew almost nobody there. Wrong. there sitting at a table was a guy I had been at School with decades earlier, one of those guys whose looks never change.
I went over and we greeted and chatted for an hour. He too was visiting TO, from China. He told me about his life and work in China, gave me the name of some contacts and six months later I was in China. After China I came to Thai --- If it had not rained that day ______
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