storytime Your First Reality Check

[DevilishlyHandsome49]

Storytime everyone!

When I was 5, I saw women in a very Disney-fied way due to all the Disney movies I'd watch. Every woman was pretty and deserving of a man complimenting them on their beauty. I would be that man sometimes. Whenever my mom took me out to the store and the cashier was a lady, I'd compliment them saying how pretty they are. That I'd like to marry them someday and that they deserved the best. (I was sooo smoove~ :V )

There were were no cruel women. Probably mean, but not cruel. The only hair they'd have would be on the top of their head and it would be perfectly maintained to look stunning. All women had a think, sleek figure and had soft voices...

I had this mindset about women...until I was 8.

It was summertime and normally I'd be at school most of the day and my mom, nana, and granddad would be at work, making the house empty. Now that I was home all day, I needed someone to watch over me until either of them got back from work. We had a neighbor who ran her own babysitting business at home and she was a family friend but I barely knew about it.

Fast-forward to the first day there. I make my greetings to my babysitter (we'll call her...idk... "Blah" for this story) she wasn't exactly pretty to me then, but she wasn't ugly: Just alright. Blah told me she had 3 children: 2 older sons who were about 16 and 17 and 1 younger daughter who was 8, soon to be 9 I think. 

Blah told me the boys were out but the daughter was still asleep but should be up in a bit. So I sat on the couch and waited while Blah turned on the TV for me and went to the kitchen to make me a snack.

5 minutes went by, until I heard a loud thumping sound coming from upstairs. At the top of the staircase was a silhouette of what I assumed to be the daughter. I put on my welcoming face and folded my hands on my lap, eager to meet her. Once I got a good look at her, my welcoming face vanished and turned into a face of shock and disappointed.

(We'll call the daughter "Ratchet" for the remainder of this story)

With each step Ratchet took down the steps, there's be a loud thump. She wasn't fat, but she just walked down the stairs with such obnoxious force that it came off like she was big. She wore this shirt that was very tight fitting cause her gut (yeah, she had a gut) was clear as day. Her posture was horrible and she had this ugly, grimacing look on her face. Her lips all pouted, nostrils wide, hair all nappy.

And then came the worst part. When she went to yawn and stretch her arms up, I swear I saw armpit hair, like a patch of it. To top it all off, once she finished, she looked at me with that same grimacing face and with a harsh tone said, "What are you looking at?" and walked to the kitchen.

I was in disbelief. Ratchet was the complete opposite of how I saw women and it wasn't just her looking this way in the morning. She'd look that way everyday I saw her and just had a terrible attitude all the time.

From that point on, I didn't stop believing that pretty girls were out there, but I also knew that not every women could be a gem, looks and personality wise. Glad I learned that lesson while I was young.

[Guest]

That was a beautiful story. I felt like I was there. 

[DevilishlyHandsome49]

That was a beautiful story. I felt like I was there. 

I'm just that good at storytelling :V

[MissFleece]

When I was 16 I discovered I was INCREDIBILITY annoying. I am still annoying but I calmed down a lot after some murder/PTSD enduced depression. I was one of those super weeaboo girls that seem to inject coffee into their bloodstreams before going out in public. Seeing the dead body of a family member apparently cures that :V

[Summercat]

Too many to list, really. 

[Hewge]

The day that I died

[Luca]

Pretty much the first time I lost a place to stay anymore. It was around 2012 that my parents HAD to move and there was literally no room for me to stay. I found a way then to move in with a friend/roommate at the time.

Actually right now I'm not in a great place anymore but I'm working on it. I'm one step away from being on the streets but I can bounce back soon.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Luca

[Zaraphayx]

Honestly I can't really pinpoint a time in history where I finally went "everything I thought I knew is wrong". It just seems like I gradually get less idealistic the more I live.

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

My first reality check was when everyone in my 5th grade class hated me.

[Butters]

When I watched Disney films, I wanted to be the princess or the witch. Later I began loving all the Disney Villians because they were by far the most fabulous thing about the movie and usually they were the underdog. 

I never get people who look at Disney and think it's something to aspire to. (Body wise or moral wise) They are just fucking awesome movies with great art. 

[Irreverent]

Too many to list, really. 

This.  Sitting in the wreck of an airline that skidded off the runway in heavy snow, hanging from the seat-belt in my flipped Jeep YJ in a back country ditch or waking up post surgery in the hospital recovery room (blown gall bladder, co-workers thought I'd had a heart attack) have a way of humbling one.

Realizing that you're not that invincible teenager any more is a very unsettling experience.

 

[Umbra.Exe]

The first time I asked my mom a question and she replied, "I don't know," I finally realized my mom was not the fountain of all knowledge I believed her to be.

[MissFleece]

The first time I asked my mom a question and she replied, "I don't know," I finally realized my mom was not the fountain of all knowledge I believed her to be.

Oof, This one hit me hard too. Or in my early teenage years when I figured out my mom had mental issues and couldn't be the mother I needed. It hits you hard when you find out your parents have emotions and flaws just like everyone else. 

[Vae]

My first would probably be waking up at 3 in the morning when I was like 3 or 4, because my parents would be screaming and breaking shit and hitting each other.
Although this is arguable, because I didn't know any different, back then. It wasn't exactly any kind of realization that suddenly hit me in the face.

Reality likes to sign checks out to me like I won the lottery or something, though.

[Skylar Husky]

When I first moved out on my own and had my first night in my new place. It was scary for the next month or so until I realized I was going to make it. You have everything taken care of when you live with your folks. When you start on your own, you suddenly you don't. You think, am I going to make the rent? Am I going to have enough money left over for groceries, lights? water? internet? The first month or so I sweated it, but after I got used to it, I really loved the freedom that came with it. That was my first really truly undeniable reality check.

 

Edited September 28, 2015 by Skylar Husky

[Eggdodger]

Oof, This one hit me hard too. Or in my early teenage years when I figured out my mom had mental issues and couldn't be the mother I needed. It hits you hard when you find out your parents have emotions and flaws just like everyone else. 

I feel you there. My reality check came when I had to move with my mom... I jumped from a home with a dying dad and manipulative stepmother to a drunken, melancholy, broken mother. She has a way of turning on me when she's been drinking, although in any other scenario she's a loving mother like she should be. However, the drinking has caused her to let me down a number of times... Like keep me up at night when I need rest for school the next day. I realized that there was no real escape but total independence. My dad's gone, so no going back to that, and my mother's not going to stop drinking anytime soon. I just need a fresh start somewhere new.

[Tsuujou]

My first reality check was my parents splitting.

[Taralack]

During my internship I learned that everyone in upper management is incompetent. 

[Dr. Doggo]

I can't really recall any big realisations.

But many people talk about stuff like when they learned Santa wasn't real being a bad day in their childhood. What's up with that? For me those ideas were ones that slowly weaned off and I was far from bothered about it. Some people talk about it like it was traumatic.

[MissFleece]

I can't really recall any big realisations.

But many people talk about stuff like when they learned Santa wasn't real being a bad day in their childhood. What's up with that? For me those ideas were ones that slowly weaned off and I was far from bothered about it. Some people talk about it like it was traumatic.

ye idk, maybe they realize that not being an asshole has no rewards, so what's the point? All those times you could have fucked someone over but didn't because an omniscient bearded man wouldn't bring you a bike... 

[Dr. Doggo]

ye idk, maybe they realize that not being an asshole has no rewards, so what's the point? All those times you could have fucked someone over but didn't because an omniscient bearded man wouldn't bring you a bike... 

father christmas is someone we should aspire to be, not to leech off of

[DevilishlyHandsome49]

I can't really recall any big realisations.

But many people talk about stuff like when they learned Santa wasn't real being a bad day in their childhood. What's up with that? For me those ideas were ones that slowly weaned off and I was far from bothered about it. Some people talk about it like it was traumatic.

It was traumatic to me when I first found out at the age of 13. I had always seen the world as a dark, boring place but Sanata being that one magically thing that brought some excitement and happiness into the world and that reality wasnt so boring afterall

When I found out he didnt exist (and the way my mom went about it didnt help either) it just made the whole world seem 10 times lamer

[Yarra]

I grew up in the 80s so it was the last few years of the cold year.  One afternoon I asked my mom what would happen if the Soviets attacked (I grew up outside DC) and she plainly said "we'll all die".   I was probably 7.  

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

I grew up in the 80s so it was the last few years of the cold year.  One afternoon I asked my mom what would happen if the Soviets attacked (I grew up outside DC) and she plainly said "we'll all die".   I was probably 7.  

God damn, that's brutal.

[Skylar Husky]

I grew up in the 80s so it was the last few years of the cold year.  One afternoon I asked my mom what would happen if the Soviets attacked (I grew up outside DC) and she plainly said "we'll all die".   I was probably 7.  

I remember doing drills where we would duck and cover under our school desks in public school in the case of attack or natural disaster. They called them different names as I came up. The threat of the cold war becoming an awful nuclear war was something everyone feared and it was even on our minds until the Berlin wall came down on November 9, 1989. Just like the terrorist attacks on September 11th, or The Tiananmen Square Tank man on June 5, 1989, it is something I do not forget when it happened and remember what I was doing when I first heard about it and saw it on TV.

Being a bit of a nerd, after I asked my father what happened in a nuclear blast and he told me about radiation poisoning, I got curious and looked up acute radiation poisoning in the library and learned the symptoms of it. I once got escorted to the principal's office one time in third grade for telling classmates that the exercise of ducking and covering was nonsense and that they would die a terrible death if the first wave didn't kill us first. It made several classmates cry. My dad was not too pleased with me afterwards either.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Skylar Husky

[ChaosCalix]

Since people have mentioned a few things to do with parents here, I figured I'd chip in.

While not necessarily the first reality check (almost certainly not), one of them would have to have been when I was told I would have to go live with my father (whom I had only a minor relation ship, seeing him once or twice a month for as long as I remembered), because my mum had been arrested and was going to be serving five years for drug possession and distribution. That was a bit of a gut punch.

[FlynnCoyote]

In early high school after the christmas break once year, we came back and the teachers announced that one of the students in our year had died in a car accident over the holidays. Not gonna lie, it devastated me and I was crying myself to sleep each night after days of putting on a brave face for weeks.

Next big life thing was when my mother had an epileptic seizure a few years ago and injured her head falling over. She was in a coma for a week and we didn't know if she'd wake up. Eventually she did, but that week was probably the worst in my life so far.

And most recently, the woman I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with told me out of nowhere earlier this year that she wanted our relationship to end. There was no talk beforehand, no clues, just bam, we're done.

Those three are probably the biggest three I've had so far.

[Butters]

I can't really recall any big realisations.

But many people talk about stuff like when they learned Santa wasn't real being a bad day in their childhood. What's up with that? For me those ideas were ones that slowly weaned off and I was far from bothered about it. Some people talk about it like it was traumatic.

yes, Gibby, there is a Santa Claus! :vvv

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

My most recent reality check was finally realizing that somebody I considered a brother didn't care about me anymore.

[Theluvlesstoast]

first reality check was when my best friend started making fun of me in kindergarten, she wanted to be friends with the popular people and they told her i was weird and she couldn't be a friend if she wanted to be cool, and now i have trust issues when it comes making female friends. 

[Skylar Husky]

Another reality check came in 2002, the year my grandmother died of lymphoma.

My grandmother lived for Christmas. Christmas was always in her heart and she loved for the whole family to come to her house to celebrate. She would go all out decorating too. She put so much stuff out her house almost seemed like a shop that sells Christmas decorations. The year she died it was almost like Christmas died in our family. It is up to us to carry it on, and make it as splendid as she did, but I knew then from that time forward it would never, ever be the same.

Those of you reading this: take the time. Take the time you have and make time for your grandparents. You will miss them once they have passed on. 

Edited October 2, 2015 by Skylar Husky