A friend mentioned being interested in psychic experiences recently, and though I don't consider myself psychic I have had some fairly weird experiences with synchronicity in my life, so I thought maybe I'd share a couple of them here.

I've always been interested in the paranormal. As a kid, I loved to read about ESP and experiment with pendulums and playing cards. I even had a Ouija board for awhile until I saw the movie "Exorcist" and got so scared I wouldn't go near it. (I would have burned it except that there was also a rumor going around at the time that if you burned one you would be able to hear the shrieks of the demon that inhabited it. And there was no way I wanted to be responsible for an angry, homeless demon! I stuck it way in the back of the hall closet, and it eventually mysteriously disappeared. I suspect my mother was just as freaked out by the thing as I was and threw it out with the trash just as soon as she was sure I'd forgotten about it.)

Anyway, even though I was always interested in psychic phenomena, it became pretty clear to me as a teenager that my hunches and feelings were not to be trusted, because I was afflicted with a pretty severe case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.) One of the major symptoms of OCD is an unexplainable feeling that something terrible is about to happen. Sometimes the worry is a specific one where you can't stop thinking that a particular frightening scenario might actually come to pass; other times, it is just a general feeling of anxiety or dread that "something" is going to go wrong. With all that going on in my head, I wouldn't have recognized a true flash of intuition if it bit me on the ass.

However, I've since come to realize that psychic intuition is in most cases not about 'seeing' in great detail some unpreventable tragedy that is about to unfold; it is more about getting a sense or impression about where things are headed and how best to apply your energy and influence to ward off potential trouble and take advantage of upcoming opportunities. This kind of insight and intuition sounds to me like it would be a pretty darn handy thing to have, so I've been doing some reading on the subject and have started doing some work with the Tarot as well. I'm still in the early stages of learning, so I don't have any gen-u-ine psychic experiences to report as of yet.

But as I mentioned earlier, I HAVE had a lot of weird experiences with synchronicity, which may or may not be related to psychic phenomena but which I've always found strange, amazing and often amusing.

A particular date has popped up in my life in some fairly interesting ways over the years. Most significantly, it is my father's birthday. This same date is also the birthday of his second wife, and of my mother's second husband (the psycho who made my whole family's lives miserable for several years.) All of the above are now divorced, incidentally. In 1981, I suffered a miscarriage on this particular date. In 1984, my first husband walked out on me on the eve of this date. (It was at the joint 40th birthday party of my dad and his wife that I told my father I was getting divorced.) [Disclaimer: With this next anecdote, I might be 'reaching' just a bit to fit it in with this series of coincidences, because the shit actually began its historic flight towards the fan about four days prior to the date in question, and hit one smelly chunk at a time over the next several days, including the date itself.] In 1998, it was several days prior to this date that, while I was attending a baseball game out of town with my father for his birthday, the Evil Childe's dad inadvertently discovered the fateful email from my 'internet love interest' that clued him in that something was amiss, and ultimately led to the end of our marriage. I was also in the process of developing a severe urinary tract infection over that same time period, and within a couple of days I was deathly ill. Meanwhile, Dick spent those couple of days snooping while I was indisposed, finally found some solid evidence of my indiscretion, and furiously jerked my sick ass out of bed at 5 in the morning for an ugly confrontation. One of my un-fondest memories, actually... being deathly sick and in terrible pain while trying to deal with the fallout of the 'affair.' Not fun. Neither was the urinary tract infection I developed exactly one year later, right on the date. Which was probably a big old karmic slap right upside the kidneys, now that I think about it.

Moving along to a another, unrelated interesting coincidence... when I met the Evil Childe's dad, I was living in a rented house with my first husband. After husband numero uno moved out, I didn't waste any time asking out my second-ex-husband-to-be, and we wound up coming back to my house to do the nasty. Spent all night doing it, too. Hee. Anyway, we continued dating, I moved out of that house and eventually moved into an apartment with him, and we became 'A Couple.' So I was talking to his mother one day, and mentioned that I had been living down in North Park when I met Dick, and she told me that she and Dick's dad had lived down there at one time. (Can you see where this is going? You too may be a psychic!) Yes, when Dick and I met, I was living in the house that his parents lived in at the time he was born. And the room that we had sex in all night? Used to be his nursery.

My synchronicity seems to have a sense of humor, as well. Back in my days as a young adult living in a conservative town, I lamented the fact that I didn't seem to possess any type of "gaydar" to help me identify other hetero-challenged individuals like myself. I was thinking it would be nice if everyone had to wear a sign proclaiming his or her orientation (upon further reflection, probably not a good idea, but it was something that just popped into my head at the time.) I was driving around in my car while idly entertaining the idea, and then forgot all about it when I stopped for gas. But when I went in to pay, I nearly laughed out loud when I handed my money to the cashier. Her name, according to the tag on her chest, was "Gay." (It occurs to me now that maybe I should have asked her out... duh.)

One more odd series of events that I don't know if it qualifies as either psychic or synchronous but was still kind of weird is the way my current job came about. Earlier in the year when the Prince was unemployed, I wasn't having a lot of success in finding a suitable job for myself, either. I wanted a job in graphic arts, but there just wasn't much out there. I NEEDED a job right away, a job that had health insurance, and I knew that my best bet was to forget graphic arts and find something secretarial. But it was hard for me to give up on the idea of holding out for something graphic arts related, so I was really struggling internally about what to do.

One day I finally made the decision to just suck it up and find a secretarial job, so I called Fran, my contact at the trusty temp service I've worked with off and on for over three years. I didn't even bother to mention graphic arts when we talked about what kind of job I was looking for, so she immediately got to work looking for something secretarial for me. She ran a few positions past me the first day, but there was nothing suitable so she said she'd keep looking. Meanwhile, I had a severe attack of regret over abandoning the graphic arts idea, so I called Fran back and told her to put me back on the inactive list, that I was going to look for a job through the placement service at my school. I was apologetic, but very adamant that I wasn't interested in getting a job through the temp service right then. She was very nice about it, wished me luck and as we were talking I could hear her typing and she said that she had just entered me into the computer as inactive.

About ten the next morning, I got a call from Fran. She said she had a receptionist job that started Monday, a temp job that might go permanent, and I didn't even have to interview for it. Would I be interested? And I decided that I might as well go ahead and take it, at least I'd get a little money rolling in to tide us over til the Prince or I found something better. Turns out it was a very tolerable receptionist position with a great company that sells graphic arts supplies, and I've been there ever since and I love it.

But the weird thing is? When Fran called me about it, it was as if the previous day's conversation about inactivating me had never happened. She has a couple of times in the past called me when I've been inactive before, but she's always been very apologetic, saying something like "Hey, I know you said you weren't working this summer but I've got this position I thought I'd run by you..." There was nothing like that this time, no indication whatsoever that she even remembered I'd asked her to inactivate me the previous day. And it's not like she thought of me for the job because of the company being a graphic arts supply place either, because when I asked what kind of company it was she said she didn't know. It was just weird... like the universe wanted me to have this job in spite of myself. And so far it has worked out very well for us. (Knock wood.) Though if I'd have known the universe was listening when I talked about the kind of job I wanted, I think I should have said I was holding out for a job IN graphic arts. Because what I said was, I wanted something vaguely graphic arts related... and oddly, that is just exactly what I got. But I'm not complaining. I like where I'm at.

Also, at the time I had consulted the online Tarot site and the Magic Pen, and both said I'd be getting a good job soon and I did. If that ain't proof of something, I don't know what is.

Of course, the Prince just rolls his eyes when I talk about shit like this; and with all good humor ever-so-patiently explains, yet again:

"The human brain evolved to be very good at recognizing patterns, which is evolutionarily advantageous in helping us to determine causes and effects in order to more effectively predict and possibly manipulate those effects to our advantage. However, the brain is so good at pattern recognition that sometimes it perceives a meaningful pattern in events that are actually just random. Reasoning and/or scientific investigation would show that the events in question were in fact not related in any meaningful way; however, most human beings are not that intelligent, and thus superstition runs rampant amongst the ignorant masses. And in you, for some inexplicable reason."

To which I reply, "Oooooo... It makes me so wet when you use big words like 'evolutionarily' and 'inexplicable'!" I just love a man with a great big throbbing brain between his ears.

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Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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