At a doctor’s appointment this morning in a new office, I waited for a nurse to call me back.  Three different nurses arrived one by one, looked at their papers and called a name.  I ignored them and waited.  Another nurse emerged and I started to stand up.  I caught myself and sat back down so that I would not draw attention.  She scanned the papers and called my name.  I stood and followed her to the exam room.

Later as I went to pick up one of my kids from a lesson, I walked in the door about 3 minutes late and knew immediately that my child was not in the building. Yet, I did not feel any sense of danger.  I walked through looking and asking the leaders.  Everyone had seen my son leave by the front door a few minutes before and no one had seen him since.  Becoming frantic, I went back out and looked all up and down the front walkway.  No sign of him.  Yet, I felt strongly that he was nearby, but it made no sense.  Why would he hide?  Where could he hide,?  I could see a long way in both directions.  Not to mention it was a cold night and his jacket and shoes were inside.  I had the strongest need to step outside and call for him, even though it seems impossible that he would be near.  So, I called him and up he popped from a small corner near the stairs where he had decided to hide.  After the required lecture and hugs, I asked why he had gone there.  He wanted to wait where he could see me drive up, but I had driven in the back way.

A busy house often results in a dirty carpet, so I have a small steam cleaner for small messes.  I cleaned up yet another routine mess and then started to put the equipment away as I usually do.  But in this case, I had the strong thought that I would need it again very soon.  So, I did not bother to wrap the cord and put it in the closet.  I then gathered my drink and stuff to go join the kids.

This evening, playing with the kids, I started to set my glass of wine down on the carpet.  I immediately got the “uh-oh” feeling.  Sighing, I picked up the glass and moved it to  an out of the way spot between a big toy and a door.  Once again, I argued with the feeling that it could not possibly tip over back there.  A few minutes later I moved across the room to pick up the ball we were playing with.  As I turned, I saw it.  My youngest holding the empty glass and saying, “Empty”.  Yep, time to go get the steam cleaner.

The situations today were very clear and easy to spot.  I usually get at least one a day.  But for every strong feeling that is so clearly on target, there are a handful of near misses.  I used to just ignore the near misses.  But as I have become a little more clear on spotting the warnings, I can sometimes feel a faint shadow of what might have happened.  Usually those are the ones where I would have smacked my shin or hurt myself in some other clumsy way.  I can almost feel the pain I narrowly avoided.  I realized that some will simply call that imagination.  But I am clear on the difference.  Not only is the echo more concrete than imagination, but I don’t experience the same faint almost pain when I avoid a normal obvious visual hazard. Still to anyone who has not dealt with it personally, it would be impossible to prove that I had prevented an accident. It seems to me, that the better I get at listening to the warnings and correctly adjusting my actions, the less I can demonstrate the validity of my extra sense.

The result of this constant double checking of every feeling and impulse is mentally exhausting.  I would love to be able to just rest my brain and not have to think about the what ifs and extra layers.  But I am terrified that if I drop my guard for one minute and stop paying attention, I will miss the critical warning that would save my kids.  No matter how drained and stressed I am from all of this mental effort, I will do my best to stay on guard.