I'm sitting in Panera right now...I'm wearing the shirt I mentioned before that has a no-smoking logo on it and says, "There are cooler ways to die." I almost always get comments on this shirt from people who say, "That's a great shirt, "or "I quit smoking a while back just for that reason." It's very satisfying...I obviously wear the shirt to make a statement, albeit a harsh one, but it gets the point across. So when I was paying, the cashier said she liked my shirt and I said thanks. But I couldn't stop there, no way. For some reason I always feel the need to tell everyone, even strangers in public, that my mom is dead and from lung cancer. I know part of it is that I want to make people realize it can hit closer to home than they'd think, and I want it to at least implant the idea in their head that if they smoke, they need to stop, because it really could happen to them even though no one thinks it will. I know I'm not trying to make people feel sorry for me. It's one thing to make people aware, but this girl had already said she agreed with my shirt, and she's only like 16, and I had to go and say, "Yeah, my mom died of lung cancer last year, so that's why I wear it." The poor girl got this horrified look on her face and didn't know what to say. Why did I have to be so blunt? I can't believe it's been more than a year and I'm still constantly feeling the need to tell everyone and their mom (oh, the irony) that I no longer have my mom.
Okay...on a better note, because I somehow learned to forgive myself when I do things like this and try not to beat myself up for taking one step forward, two steps back...now I will detail my session with the psychic that I had a few months ago now. I really meant to write about all this sooner so I wouldn't forget anything. They actually give you the option to have your session tape recorded, but I forgot until after it was over, and he said, "Don't worry, you won't forget anything; you have a great memory." Aptly said from a psychic. :) But he was right. He was right about everything, in fact. Let me start out by saying again that even though I never truly believed people had those abilities before now, I was always fascinated with the prospect. My favorite movies are almost always those psychological thriller-type movies based on communicating with ghosts or involving psychics or mediums. Now, I did always believe in ghosts, or maybe not ghosts, but the ability of those who have passed on to communicate with the loved ones left behind. If you've read anything in my journal so far, you already know that. But psychic stuff...well, it was a really cool idea but not anything I was sold on. (Although I do remember one time when I was maybe about twelve and I had a dream that my mom was telepathic and could read all my thoughts...the dream was so real that when I woke up, I didn't want to be around her for a couple hours because I was afraid of someone being able to see into my head!! lol I finally told her about the dream and asked her over and over, "Are you SURE you can't read my mind?" And she would keep looking at me funny and say, "Yes, I PROMISE I can't read your mind." How funny.)
Anyway...so that was til I actually had a session with one. My two closest friends gave it to me as a birthday gift last year. If they are reading this, I really don't want this to hurt their feelings...but at first, I was kinda ticked that they'd gotten me that for my birthday. It had been a really crappy birthday to begin with, and I was expecting that they would at least get me a present that would cheer me up. When they told me what it was, my first thought was, "Don't they know me better than that? Why in the world would they think I would even want that?" Both of them are really into that kind of thing, and I wasn't, despite my curiosity. But I finally went, and they went with me, and call me crazy, but that guy was right on, and not about little things that any clever person could deduce, as you will see. So I went into it skeptically but still kind of hoping that he'd be right because then that would mean people really could do that sort of thing. Like I said, my best friend and my other closest friend and her daughter were with me - she's the one I talked about earlier when I wrote about kids. When the guy came to get me to take me into the session room, she wanted to come with me, and I put my hand on her head and told her I'd be back in just a little bit. On our way up the stairs in the building, the guy said, "So how old is your daughter?" I kinda laughed and said, "She's not my daughter, she's my friend's." I was thinking to myself, "Geez, this guy is wrong right from the start and couldn't even tell that she wasn't my daughter!!" But then he said, "Wow, I'm very surprised she's not yours...there is such a strong connection between the two of you. I guess you're a lot like an aunt to her then...she means more to you than just being a friend's daughter." So what, I thought, if he's right on - anyone could have guessed that from the fact that she wanted to come with me and the way I patted her head. So we get in the room and sit down and he pulls out the Tarot cards. Now, I am a Christian, as you know, and I don't for a minute believe that cards have any power in and of themselves to tell the future, and I probably sound like a hypocrite to the hardcore Christians who think all this stuff is from the devil. I absolutely, 100% believe in God, Jesus, his death on the cross, the Bible, and all of it. But I do still have enough imagination to believe that just because we can't see or touch things does not mean they aren't real. After all, we can't physically see or touch God, but we know he is real. So why should we then discard other things' legitimacy just because they don't seem logical? So...he gets all the cards laid out, and the first thing he says is, "You are about to start a new job." (Throughout the whole thing, he didn't ask many questions - he mostly made statements of what he knew to be true, which I was glad because if he'd asked a lot of questions, I'd have thought he was just leading me to figure things out the regular way.) I was amazed. I was about to start a brand new job in two days. Then he said, "And not only is it a new job, but it's something you've never done professionally before...it's a whole new field for you." I had been a secretary for a [way too] long time, and now I was about to start my dream job in graphic design. He told me a little about my job and how I was doing the right thing. He started telling me about my boyfriend and knew that he was getting ready to travel somewhere. He even mentioned the fact that I like to sleep for hours at a time - as in like, 13 or 14 - and my boyfriend only sleeps about five or six hours a night. He told me I was with the right person and some more details about our relationship. He said one day we would get married, but it wouldn't be as soon as I'd like it to be, which makes sense because I'm always in a hurry for that kind of thing in spite of what I went through before. I asked him about children someday, and he looked up at me and said, "You only want one child." Right on again! All my life, all I ever wanted was to have one little girl, and that's it. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and I always hoped for the same kind of relationship with a daughter as my mom and I have. But I know I hadn't told him thus far that I'm an only child, and I hadn't mentioned anything about my mom either. He told me that I was going to have only one child and that it would not happen as soon as I'd like either...which again makes sense cause I'd probably pop out a kid right now if I could. :) He said I would not have a difficult pregnancy, per say, but that I was going to absolutely baloon up beyond belief if I wasn't careful - lol - and that the last month or two might be spent in bedrest. You know, I didn't really even think to ask him if it would be a boy or a girl, because I've always just known, and he didn't volunteer it since I didn't ask. So after he had pretty much wiped out any thoughts in my head that he was a fraud by this point, I told him I wanted to know about people in my life who had passed on. He said all he needed was a name and an age. I kept my face perfectly clear of any emotion and casually said, "Marilyn...she was 60." He kind of looked off behind me and after a minute, he looked at me sadly and said, "She's your mum." (He's Irish.) I teared up then and nodded. Now, my mom had me when she was 35, and 25 years ago, that was less common than it is now. Most people my age have parents in their fifties, not sixties. It still could have been a lucky guess, but the stuff he said afterward was not. Without asking me a thing, he began to describe the way she looked and said she was very beautiful and very alluring to men without even meaning to be...but he said for the last several years she stopped caring about her appearance or trying to do herself up and that worry and stress had really aged her. Completely true. Then he started describing the cancer (again, without me telling him what she died of) and how it completely emaciated her already thin face and body and wasted her away. He described the way she looked lying in bed, how by the time she died she looked like she was 90 instead of 60. Then he said, "Did she have a ring with blue stones? She keeps showing that to me." She did. She had wanted a ring for her index finger for years and was finally given one as a gift that had sapphires in it...she was so proud of it. And she had also bought me a sapphire ring when I was a senior in high school that I had wanted for a long time. He said, "She's not going anywhere right now. She has decided to stay very near to you and your family for a while now because she knows how much you need that. It's not because she feels trapped into doing it; she just wants to." He confirmed some of the signs that I thought she'd sent me. He paused again and looked behind me...I suppose she was right there, which didn't surprise me at all. Then he looked at me in that pointed way again and simply stated, "You bathed her." And I had. Before she went into the hospital and hospice, she was almost bedridden because she was so weak from the treatments, and the cancer itself, that she could hardly walk. She mentioned that she hadn't had a bath in a while and she thought one would feel good, but she was too weak, she said. I could tell from the way she said it and because I know her so well that she was not trying to give me a not-so-subtle hint or guilt me into giving her a bath. I cheerfully said, "You know what? We're going to get you a bath." She protested over and over and said, "No, Jen, that's too much for me to ask of you. I'm fine. I don't really need one." (That was so typically my mom.) But I wouldn't hear of it, and I told her, "Don't you worry about a thing. I can get you in the bathtub and I'll do everything. I think it would make you feel so much better, and I really want to do that for you." God, it's hard for me not to cry as I write this. She did have a shower chair that my aunt had given her, and we got her in the bathroom and undressed and onto the chair. Without thinking for a minute that it could be awkward or embarrassing for either one of us, because it wasn't, I gave my mother a bath. It was the most perfectly natural thing for me to do. I don't mean to make myself out to be a hero, the selfless daughter. It's just that my mom had spent my life taking care of me, nurturing me, and it was the least I could do for her in her time of need and I love her so deeply that there's no way I could NOT have done that for her. Again, not to sound like a hero, but I don't think most children have ever given their own parent a bath...my point is, there's no way that could have been a lucky guess on the psychic's part. I asked him about my parents' relationship with each other, and again, he was totally accurate. He said, "They weren't happy for a long time...there was a lot of clashing and them butting heads on everything...but in spite of all of it, they both stayed. And they stayed because deep down, they really wanted to." He was right. They both threatened to leave each other more than once and had gotten to a point where if it had been me, I woulda hightailed it outa there rather than endure that. But I know he was right...if either of them had TRULY wanted to leave, they would have, because deep down they still had a deep care for the other one and felt they still needed each other somehow. They both said that to me more than once. He said my mom kept showing him this very large, very fluffy gray cat and wanted to know if that was my cat from childhood. I laughed and said, "No, that's my cat now!! He was her favorite." And I must say, while I love all my pets deeeply, he has something extra, something really special in his eyes that more than one person has noticed enough to comment on...my dad says he looks like he holds all the answers to the universe in his head. So it didn't surprise me that he was the one my mom kept showing. That's all I can remember right now about her specifically in the session. I also asked him about my three pets that have died....two of which I still carry guilt over because I feel like I should have and could have done something to prevent their early deaths. He told me he sensed nothing but deep love and admiration from them. I also asked him about past lives. Now you hardcore Christians (and I don't mean that as a derogatory term by any means, please know that), or even those of you who don't believe in any faith or who are just very skeptical, logical people, are REALLY thinking, "Okay, she's gone off the deep end now!" But why would he be so incredibly accurate about the rest of it and then just make that up? Reincarnation is not something I ever believed in before, nor is it an idea I would even begin to entertain before. But the more I read and the more strange experiences I have, the more it makes sense. It in no way negates my belief in the Bible being God-breathed truth. Let's face it...on the whole, we humans are stupid. We have to learn everything the hard way. Sometimes more than once cause we just didn't get it the first time. How could we possibly learn everything we need to learn in one single lifetime? It makes perfect sense to me that it would take more than one lifetime to go through enough experiences to really learn and grow. And there are just some people that you look at and you just KNOW, you have this sense, that you were together before. Like soulmates. And I do not believe for a minute that soulmates are just love relationships. I know that my mom is my soulmate. So is my best friend. And so is my cat Tommy that I just talked about. You just know when you look in someone's eyes when there is a truly special, unique connection that just doesn't happen everyday, even with other people you really care about and like. I think that could even explain why we meet a guy, supposedly for the first time, and feel this connection or recognition...only to find out later he's a complete jerk and not worthy of our time. Maybe it's because we were actually with him in a past life and forgot how bad he was, so in this life we recognize him and feel like we're supposed to be with him because of that sense. Anyhow, he told me about the two past lives that he thinks are influencing my life now the most. In one, I was married to my ex-husband and we were settlers in Virginia. He was a carpenter, and I was a little housewife who was expected to do everything he told me and keep everything perfect. I was a much stronger woman for the time period than most and felt very confined by the period clothing and female responsibilities and expectations. We tried to have a child because everyone was expected to, but we never had any luck in conceiving, and he blamed it on me and severely resented me for it, which came out in the way he treated me. I died a miserable woman at age 45 of scarlet fever. Other than the child part, it's a very accurate description of my first marriage. Oh, my name was Megan. In the other life he told me about, I was married to the guy who is myboyfriend now, and we were very happy. He was a baker, and I, in turn, was a very large woman. :) But we really loved each other and were happy, and even though we couldn't have children either, we didn't blame each other for the problem. I turned my desire for a child into opening a large orphanage in Naples, Italy where we lived and took in all kinds of kids who were orphans or just needed someplace to go and receive love and attention. There were always children in and out of my home. That sounds so like me. He said that's part of why my desire to be a mom in this life is so incredibly strong, since I couldn't have one in the last two lives. My name in that one was Lucia. When my session was over, the last thing he said on the way out the door was that my mom kept showing him this hand motion as if she were bowling and asked me what it meant. I said, "I have no idea...she wasn't into bowling," and he said, "But she just keeps showing this movement to me and it must mean something." The more I think about it, the more I think maybe she was trying to tell me through that motion, "Keep going. Keep living. Get a move on with your life and be happy and realize your dreams."
I think that covers just about everything in the session. Okay, I think it's about time I left Panera before I get kicked out. :)
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