Irony and Intuition
Filed under: Everyday Life, Motherhood, Widowhood by Angela ~ Comments (1)
Okay, so I AM still alive and kicking.
I’m not really sure where this post is going but settle in and we will see where it ends.
For three of the four years since Bruce passed away, I have been able to get away for at least part of the week between the death and the funeral. I call it hell week.
This year was one of the years I was able to get away. The kids and I took a road trip from Washington State to Winnipeg. Yes, part of the reason was for me to be able to see CG but other parts of the trip were for the kids and I to get away from life and see some of the beatiful world in which we live.
We were able to visit Mt. Rushmore, which was quite a treat for all of us. We hit seven states and one province. Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota and Manitoba. What? You say I only mentioned six states so far? You’re right. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, after a slight diversion.
If you know anything about the MBTI (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator) you know that people are classified into 16 different personality types. I am an ESTJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging) while CG is an INTJ (Introverted, Intuituve, Thinking, Judging).
Very early in our relationship, CG warned me that at sometime in our relationship, I would have to trust the intuitive part of his personality. I don’t know that we’ve come across that point yet or not, but I absolutely do trust and believe in it. What I don’t trust is my own ability to have some good intuitions.
The reasons for this are long and varied and not really important but, its enough to know that I often ignore those things that I cannot sense with the five senses.
Back to vacation. One of the ideas I had for the vacation was to go to visit the Mall of America in Minneapolis. We were going to do this on the way home but I had the ‘brilliant’ idea to take a few days away from Winnipeg and go during the trip instead of on the way home. I knew that CG would appreciate a couple of days of his normal quietness instead of the chaos that comes along with three teenagers.
I got on the internet and went to my favorite hotel chains website and made reservations. For some reason, I chose a different hotel than I had made reservations for on the return trip.
So, once I found the reservations could be changed, I decided the kids and I would go to Minneapolis on August 1st and return to Winnipeg on August 2nd.
On the way to Minnesota, I was nervous. I didn’t know why but the results of that nervousness were the shortening of all the nails on my right hand. I have an awful habit of biting my nails when I am stressed.
About 7:30ish I got a text message from CG telling me of a bridge collapse on I35W, which is one of the highways we traveled from the hotel to the Mall of America. He asked if we were okay. Which, we were. I asked him to check to see where the collapse was as compared to the hotel. We were south of the collapse. We hadn’t traveled over that bridge.
I had decided to get away from life during hell week and thrust myself back into a different type of hell. I was already emotional because of the week but to know that several other people were now joining me in grief was overwhelming.
Although I was four years out from that initial awful grief, I could vividly imagine and recall that new grief of the survivors of the accident victims.
So, what does this have to do with intuition and irony?
I can’t help but wonder if the change in hotel was intuition. I can’t help but wonder if the nail biting was intuition. And, I can’t help but wonder if I will ever trust the fact that I do have some intuitive abilities.
The irony of that trip was that I was trying to get away from the reminder of death and grief.
My heart truly goes out to the families of those who died that day. I hope that in four years you, too, will be able to know that life can still be good and that it does go on, even when we don’t want it to.