Turning Point

This week, Canadians chose a Prime Minister to lead us as we forge a fair trade deal with our American neighbour. Mark Carney possesses significant communication skills and sharp business acumen, however, there is no doubt that upcoming negotiations will be a turning point. 

 We’ve experienced personal turning points, too. Most of us can point to at least one event that changed the trajectory of our lives. This evening, before I began this blog, I took a brief break from working on my book to scroll through Instagram. There were a ton of very young musicians stunning audiences with their prowess. I wondered what turning point in their lives propelled these young savants forward on their musical path. 

 Could it be that life's turning points relate to the direction we need to fulfill our life's purpose? I can trace a few turning points and they served my life's purpose. They had a mystical quality to them and changed the direction of my life. 

 Mrs. Peggy Breckon was a gifted teacher in a small prairie town. So small we had split grade classrooms. She noticed my tendency to focus on the older students' lessons, then daydream. After class, she showed me a more secluded spot in the classroom and suggested I choose a project on Saskatchewan. I knew what project I wanted to do and worked on it for weeks. At age nine, I completed my first research project. I still have the fifty-five-page book full of pressed and labelled Wild Flowers of Saskatchewan. She saw who I was and how I learned. Now, in my older age, I can see how that turning point reinforced my love of researching, learning, and working on lengthy projects.

 A middle school teacher in small town British Columbia taught me something startling. I was a shy young teen with very little self-esteem. My emotions were chaotic, so I dragged myself through school days. In one class, my teacher finished his lesson and took the last five minutes to discuss a topic I was uncomfortable with: teenage growth. Horrified, I tuned out as he asked us questions about how everyone grows differently at our age. No **** Sherlock, I thought to myself; I’d never swear out loud! I remember nothing else he said until I heard, “Our bodies grow at different rates. Some are more physically developed than others. Others,” he paused and looked straight at me, “are late bloomers.”

 I still remember cracking a fleeting smile. That’s what I am, I thought, looking at my flat chest and touching the red sores on my forehead. I’m a late bloomer. It meant, to me, that I could be beautiful one day. That powerful phrase and possibility lifted me up and out of my melancholy. The popular girls couldn’t affect me anymore with their disgusted looks or snickers, because while they were already blooming, my turn would come. I ran into one of the popular girls about twenty years later and had to smile. She appeared to be ten years older. Her surprise at my appearance was genuine. There were no snickers or disgust.

When I was caring for three children on my own and paying a mortgage, by chance I met a man I believed I loved. We had only met a few times when he dropped by my workplace. I could tell he felt conflicted and wanted to speak with me about something important. He told me he felt strongly about moving away from the town we lived in to a bigger city because his teenage daughter had moved there. “She needs support,” he said. I replied, “Then you need to go,” knowing that he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her. That was it. After telling the man I loved he had to move far away, the realization that I might never lay eyes on him again dawned on me. I realized the turning point was giving up a life with this amazing man because I loved him. Long story short, he moved back to our town a year and a half later. This year marks 27 years together. 

 Another turning point occurred years later. Chris and I weathered tough moves, severe stresses, life-threatening illnesses, family heart breaks, a difficult menopause, and through it all, we stood by each other sustained by the bedrock of love we shared. The turning point was I felt safe enough to venture into a mystical transformation, which is the subject of the memoir I’m writing. Change of any kind can be rough. We have spirited discussions and don’t always agree, but we can always laugh at our foibles. 

In hindsight, my prairie school teacher showed me a different way to learn that made learning easier and fun. The middle school teacher bolstered my confidence when I needed it the most. My partner and I loved each other in a way that made me feel safe when I didn’t have any sense of safety on my own. 

History will indeed reveal the truth about a turning point in Canada/U.S. relations. Were events preceding turning points easy? Certainly not. Collectively, we hope for stability and a fair result. Personally, each example influenced my life’s path because an individual established a genuine connection with me and saw past any pretense at the core of my being. It is this experience I credit for the positive influences turning points created in my life. My takeaways? It doesn’t take much to facilitate a turning point. Showing care and kindness means sometimes stepping into the lives of those around us. A single moment of clarity can spark a lifetime of growth and gratitude.