The experiences that made me grow the most

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

Normally, one would think it would be a very nice experience that would make a person grow in life.

Lots of impressions make an imprint in a person’s life and help grow him or her and form his or her character. We are moulded by all the different experiences that we encounter.

Sometimes it takes a lot of time before we can say that we are coming to a ‘form’ that makes our personality.

I must say the experiences in life that helped me grow the most, were the ones I for years did not want to talk about, and even thought I could forget or hide for ever. But once I passed the fifties, sitting in a chair by the dentist, it suddenly came all up again.

I knew, at the time that what happened when in my younger years, I would carry with me my whole lifetime. It was such a strange experience. Something whereof I never heard of. In those years you also never heard about such matters, Forty years later though, it became the talk of the day and surprisingly (or not) it seemed that I was not the only one who had to endure such a horrible experience.

The night it happened, I was so ashamed, and for days I thought everybody on the street, or train platform, could see what had happened to me. All the scrubbing and washing for hours could not wash it away. Nor could it bring my thoughts at ease.

In later years, I could hear more of such things happening to the female race. But we did not hear stories, or read in the papers, of such things that had happened to men. 35 or 40 years later, it looked like hell. Suddenly the demons seemed to have been allowed to come out of the cupboard. Newspapers and television stations had their mouth full of young men, and even children, who had encountered a similar experience like me. Though At that time, I still did not come out or tell others of that horrendous experiences which made me look at mankind in a totally different and perhaps distorted way. Though I could clearly see and feel what certain men in Serbia had to undergo.

For years and years, I kept it quiet, what happened to me. But being active in Christian chat-groups I was able to help others, because of what I myself had undergone.

Funny that experiences one would not like to have in their life could help to make your personality and make it possible to help others.

Some experiences I got made me also realise that what we sometimes saw in films could also go like that in real life. I always laughed and found it impossible when in the American movies there were shooting accidents and nobody reacted, Until one day I ended up in between a crossfire. I quickly hid behind a car, and as soon the shooting stopped, I like all the people around me, walked further as if nothing had happened.

Another experience, that confirmed my faith, and gave me some trust, was when in Chiswick Park I was attacked by a gang of seven boys. Even when they were pushing their knives through my coat, I could keep calm, go further and in the end could get myself in safety. (The coat I could throw away, with all the cuts.)

An IRA bombing on the tube was at that time a very weird experience. Getting out of the car and having to walk between the rails, knowing that one rail could be under 1500 volts, was really very strange, but at that time (being young) also an adventure,

Another IRA bombing I witnessed was of a totally different matter. The same as the other horrible experience I thought I could erase it from my memory. Not so. When there was the terrorist bomb attack at Brussels airport in 2016, it all came back again. Like it was yesterday, I saw the bloody limbs flying in the air again. But the most incredible experience was That I smelled the burned flesh again. That smell penetrated so much. It, after all those years, it happened in the 70ies is still very lively with me.

It looked like the most important moulding of my person had to happen in the seventies. Though still enjoying my hippie years I got my clashes, or many broken windows, that brought pain and sorrow but also gave me the courage to continue life and to tackle each new day, as if it was that extra gift I could receive, to make the best out of my life.

The many, not such lovely experiences made me the person I am today. Though I carry with me the wounds and sometimes still the dreams of the bad experiences, it made me possible to help lots of others who were also wounded by horrible experiences.

My bad experiences became the tools to heal others.

 

In line with my previous posting on Some View on the World, on the daily prompt about fate or destination in life, perhaps one could say, all the experiences one encounter in life are part of the person’s fate or destiny.

 

Written on my iPad, after my work at Brussels Airport. Now at an age where I am not afraid any more to talk about a certain horrible experience that did not come to my lips for decades and to look back at the other unpleasant experiences that got part of my interesting life.

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Fate, destiny, time and place