I'm No Superhero

I hate when I have a feeling and I am right. Especially if it is a bad feeling. I hope that I am wrong, but something inside me just knows. Not really sure how it happened, I just know that I will never forget when it did or any of the times after that. What you are about to read are true events.

I had just turned the 18 a couple of days ago. Now it was Monday morning. I was performing my normal getting ready in the morning routine when I suddenly had this feeling come over me. It felt like my heart was trapped in a thick blanket of fear, dread, panic and sadness. I dismissed it, thinking I was just having "official adult jitters." I went off to school rationalizing it was just that. I reassured myself that I would be fine and figure out life soon enough.

I had a test or something to do for second period in another room. When I returned to my astronomy class, everyone was glued to the TV. It didn't take me long to figure out that something was really wrong. I stared in horror as I saw what happened. It was September 11. I am pretty sure you know what I am referring to without going into great detail. So I won't. I don't know who will read this. I'm not here to make waves, but just to share my story. For those of you that have survived it or have lost your loved ones, I am so so sorry.

I was so overwhelmed, like everyone else, that I still dismissed the feeling that I had before it happened. I was sad for everyone that this happened to them and scared that this is the world that I live in and that it wasn't going to be the same again. I remember the Murrah bombing as well, but I was a kid. Experiencing that amount of tragedy is different when you are in the fourth grade, although you will never forget it. I'm not saying that children do not succumb to life changing events. Children, in my opinion, just have more resilience. I had strong feelings before, when I was a child, but didn't have anyone to help me understand them. My feelings were often ignored.

My world would be turned upside down once again almost a year later. I was still in high school, in my Sociology class. (I was able to earn a little college credit, because I was awesome. Just kidding. It was an opportunity and I took it.) I got the same dreaded panicky feeling again. An office assistant appeared at the door way. I was really hoping that it wasn't for me. Sure enough, it was. It all happened in slow motion. I got up, took my hall pass, and saw my boyfriend at the office door. (He graduated in May of that year.) He looked sad. I asked him what was wrong. He told me he would tell me in the car, but I wanted to know right then. He told me that my grandpa had died.

I walked out of school on that brisk autumn morning trying to process what was happening. Life sucks when it shifts everything for you in a painful way. I walked into the family room of the hospital knowing that I knew what had already happened before anyone else did.

I just want you to know that I have no relation to John Ritter. I just know that he was a beloved actor. I used to watch him on Threes Company when I was a little girl. Alas, I knew when he died too. Things around me felt sad. I eventually found out we lost an amazing person.

By that time, I was beginning to see a pattern. Very strong feelings equal something bad. Okay, piece of cake. Not! (I grew up in the 90s, I have no regrets.) I still have strong feelings sometimes. I just cannot decipher where they are coming from. I feel crazy and it's uncomfortable. I have learned that there isn't anything that I can do about it, just get through it somehow and hope that it's not anyone I am close to. Which, brings me to my sister.

I would feel anxious or angry for no apparent reason at the most inopportune times. One time I started crying at work, for no reason at all. I couldn't tell my supervisor what was going on, because I didn't know. I was afraid that she might think that I was crazy and send me home. Talk about awkward! I would later find out something was going on with my sister. She was married to a leech in every since of the word. He made her very unhappy.

We had a bond like that was thicker than blood. It was like I carried a little piece of her soul inside of mine. We weren't twins or anything like that, but what we had was special. I talk about her in past tense because she is no longer on this earth. I miss her more than anyone will ever know. She was eight years older than me. People might have had more time with her I did. She was in my radar and that's why I can justify that I miss her more.

For me, this one is the scariest. I had a dream my daughter died. I was so sad that I came in to the living room in the middle of the night to find my husband still up. I sat down beside him and leaned into him. He asked me what was wrong. I told him. He said that I should go check on her to make sure she was alright. Sure enough she was. Everything was okay. I went back to sleep and dreamed that I had told someone that lost their child about my dream, which I would never do. Later on that day, the world announced that Stephen Hawking passed away. I'm not entirely sure at what time he died. I just tried to research it and have come up short. I don't think that it was a coincidence that I would dream about death, to wake up the same day to find out someone of great importance would actually leave this earth.

I don't know why the universe likes to alert me of events that are about to happen or have happened. I didn't ask for this. Like the title states, I am no superhero. It doesn't happen all of the time or everyday for that matter, which I am thankful for. If there is anything that I could do, I most definitely would. I want you know that if you have experienced this, you are not alone and you are not crazy. You are an empath and that's okay.