Because I Like Lists: Events That Had A Big Emotional Impact on Me

[kimberly_a]

For the past few days, for no apparent reason, I've been concocting this list of the national/international events that have had the most vivid effect on me thus far in my life. I'm not sure what it means that the earliest one that really had a big impact was when I was 16. I remember some politically or culturally significant events before that,

Comments

[nekogirl]

I read ... or saw... something on Chernobyl recently. It was about an elderly couple who had been evacuated from the area after the meltdown, and how they had been relocated to some city that they hated. Years later, they decided that they didn't care, and illegally moved back into the evacuated area and were living off the land. They (I think) kept a cow or maybe goats, and were growing all their own vegetables in the (I assume) contaminated soil. They basically decided they were old enough, and they wanted to live in their home regardless of the consequences. They said they were fine but the feature didn't go into any of the potential consequences of living in the area.

[19_crows]

I'd have to think about it to come up with a list, but I wasn't (and haven't been) very affected by political things like this. I know I was vaguely aware of apartheid, but my reaction was more like "wow, I'm so lucky I'm not a black person living there." I remember when the Berlin Wall came down but I didn't really understand what that meant, and didn't care much.

The things that affected me were social things: finding out women were supposed to change their names when they got married, but men weren't; hippies being a big deal and wanting to be "cool" and "free" like that (without understanding how much more complex it was); becoming aware that there were things like fires and earthquakes that could demolish our house and everything in my life.