Six years ago today, COVID changed my life....what other moments radically changed your life?

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flyoverstate

Recycles dryer sheets
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It was six years ago today, March 13, 2020, that the company I was working for sent us home "for a few weeks" until the COVID thing blew over. We were told to take whatever equipment we needed to work from home until we were called back. It never happened. I retired in December of 2024, without ever being required to go into the office again. I did go in a couple of times in 2023, and toward the end of my term, I went in about once a month, but there were a LOT of people that I worked with whom I never saw again in person, only via Zoom calls.

It was a case of "your life just radically changed", with out even knowing it at the time. I have only had a few of those moments in my life, I guess I would count these:

The moment I met my wife, the moments each of our kids were born, the moment I realized what 9/11 really meant, the deaths of my parents, the death of a sibling, and the moment I was sent home from work permanently (even though I didn't know it was permanent at the time).

Oddly (perhaps), the day I retired is not one of those days. I had prepared for it extensively, and it just flowed through my life.

What are your moments?
 
It was 44 years ago. I was in bowling league 2 nights a week, and on a softball team, ski vacations, trips to Las Vegas, and went to the bars most nights a week with buddies.

All of this ended when I got married. I discovered that being married was a radically different lifestyle from being single.
 
June of 2020. Wife and I were vacationing in Puerto Vallarta when the phone rang. Her brother, age 65, died suddenly. He was looking after MIL who had moderate dementia. There was no one else in the family to help. About a 10 minute conversation later, we made the only decision possible: sell our home of 30+ years and move across the country to care for her. We flew back the next day, loaded up the car and dog and went to TN. Stayed for a month, then I went back to AZ alone to get rid of a lifetime of stuff, sell the house, and pack up a Uhaul. Six weeks after that, I was living in a town where I knew no one and had no roots.
MIL was with us for three years before she passed. We then moved back to AZ, to a new city and honestly, I never fully recovered. Being so isolated for those years, I never made any new close friends and in truth, still haven't.
 
It was a sunny day in early September 1965, when I went to the first day of first grade (I did not attend kindergarten). I quickly came to the horrifying realization that I was surrounded by people who couldn't even read and didn't show much promise of learning anytime soon. That was just the start of a lifetime of disappointment.
 
flyoverstate said:
It was six years ago today, March 13, 2020, that the company I was working for sent us home "for a few weeks" until the COVID thing blew over. We were told to take whatever equipment we needed to work from home until we were called back. It never happened. I retired in December of 2024, without ever being required to go into the office again. I did go in a couple of times in 2023, and toward the end of my term, I went in about once a month, but there were a LOT of people that I worked with whom I never saw again in person, only via Zoom calls.

It was a case of "your life just radically changed", with out even knowing it at the time. I have only had a few of those moments in my life, I guess I would count these:

The moment I met my wife, the moments each of our kids were born, the moment I realized what 9/11 really meant, the deaths of my parents, the death of a sibling, and the moment I was sent home from work permanently (even though I didn't know it was permanent at the time).

Oddly (perhaps), the day I retired is not one of those days. I had prepared for it extensively, and it just flowed through my life.

What are your moments?
Click to expand...
For a while we referred to anything earlier than March, 2020 as “The Before Times”. But we all got through it and came out the other side. Learned a lot about germs.

Where our older son worked, they sent everyone home for a while and then it became permanent. He’s still working from home but goes into the office one day a week. For what he does, it works great.

His office moved to a new location and they tore down the old building. They were able to go to the old place to collect their personal stuff before the demolition. Strange and creepy.
 
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1 April 2020 was my first day of retirement. Normally that would be a cause of celebration, but health wise I was growing sicker each day. Because of COVID taking hold of health care it was extremely difficult to get appointments and testing. One oncologist mis-diagnosed, and it took another month to find better help.

Every appointment required COVID testing, meaning long waits in a line of cars. Eventually I was biopsied north and south and was diagnosed with Stage IV urothelial cancer.

Life was so unusual. Driving to the city for treatment there'd be very little traffic. I recall driving north on 95 from Broad to the Whitman bridge, and we did not see another car. It was early afternoon on a weekday.

It's six years past, and I've experienced many trips, family events, and emotions. Too much for one post

It's been a rough winter, with more transformation, but we have a family reunion coming up in a couple of weeks, and it will be a great time for many.
 
Death of my mom when I was 14
Starting a business
Having DW survive two bouts with cancer
Sounds weird and some may not get it, but we had our dog killed in a criminal act. The city pursued action against them. We were considered witnesses. The couple that killed him were so rotten to the core. It was a really bad time.
 
Lot's of memorable dates (both good and bad) but the one date that will always stick in my mind as the absolutely most impactful "to me personally" is July 1, 1970 (for 1971 draft). I keep the screen shot below as a memento.

1773492906763.png
 
1. The first date with my husband when we were 21-we'd known each other for 6 years.
2. Birth of our son.
3. Moving from the SF Bay Area to south Central PA at the end of 1998.
4. When my dad moved near me to make sure he was taken care of at the end of his life, taking over managing his finances as well as taking care of him, and handling his estate. I learned a lot and it put both me and my sister into full FI.
5. Retiring for good 2019, then immediately spending two weeks in Italy.
 
Marriage and birth of two kids, best changes ever!
 
I can't think of any singular event that radically changed my life. Wife and I lived together before getting married, so that didn't make an appreciable difference. Sure, birth of children, but I was already inclined to be a family man.

Covid changed a lot of things for me. Some good, most bad.
 
Car-Guy said:
Lot's of memorable dates (both good and bad) but the one date that will always stick in my mind as the absolutely most impactful "to me personally" is July 1, 1970 (for 1971 draft). I keep the screen shot below as a memento.

View attachment 62349
Click to expand...
My husband was up the next year and drew 9. He'd only applied to one school, Penn State, and fortunately was accepted. But his back up plan was to go into the corp of engineers (he had an associates in engineering). That draft lottery still impacts him.
 
rodi said:
My husband was up the next year and drew 9. He'd only applied to one school, Penn State, and fortunately was accepted. But his back up plan was to go into the corp of engineers (he had an associates in engineering). That draft lottery still impacts him.
Click to expand...
My backup plan was Canada (that's a joke:)) I think about that lottery day often and the "luck of the draw" and how lucky I "probably" was. Maybe that's why I like to gamble these days. (that's not a joke)
 
Remember the day with complete clarity.

Three young kids were in the yard on the grass on a blanket having a picnic. I was doing some work out there too.

Older kids got up when my wife called them for lunch. The youngest didn’t move. Hmmmm. I snuck up behind her and called her name. No reaction. Clapped my hands loud. No reaction.

That was the day we figured out our 1 yr old daughter who cries so very loud was deaf! Endless therapies special classes and counseling followed.

Fast forward thirty years and that little deaf girl on the blanket on the grass earned a graduated degree from Johns Hopkins and is now a bad ass ICU nurse working with Heart and Lung transplant patients.
 
August 22, 1976 the day i moved to Wyoming. My goal in high school was to get as far and fast from where I grew up. I had never been to Wyoming or knew anything about the University of Wyoming, but there I was. I've lived in Colorado or Wyoming ever since. The song on the radio as I crossed the state line was Marrakech Express by Crosby, Stills and Nash.
 
Death of my dad
Meeting my fiance by chance again over 15 years after I first met her
2 children
Early retirement
 
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