the bearable lightness of being

Ten days earlier, I went to my masseuse who is also a psychic healer, an intuitive if you will. You can roll your eyes all day long if you want, that's fine with me. I scoffed at this myself for a long time. That is, before I went.

I've been going to her since late April, perhaps early May. I finally decided to use the gift certificate I'd been given for Christmas. And, truth be told, my mother had been telling me to go see her for several years. I found every excuse imaginable not to go as if she was the dentist or something. Why is that, I wonder now, perhaps because the idea of someone being able to 'read' me the moment I meet them somehow...terrifies me? Could be.

Ten days before the bizarre weekend of events, one of which involved car theft - or more specifically, grand theft auto, which is considered in all 50 states, a felony - which I reported (thankfully) but for which I did not press charges (coercion after a hostile event that took place on a boat) which I now regret. I am hoping this all works out for me somehow even though I was the innocent party in all this. A bystander, really. Seeing a man strike a woman while out on the open water, in someone's boat, a someone I met years prior but don't really know that well, there's a certain shock that takes over. And, in my case, a horror at the Jerry Springer meets Jersey Shore-ness of it all when that same person stole my car. And his abused girlfriend begged me not to press charges. I was in some kind of alternate reality, certainly. Not thinking clearly.

Ten days before this shitty chain of events, I lay peacefully, on a comfy, easy, flannel-sheeted massage table in Maitland, Florida. "Energy work" was performed, a psychic healing method that, quite truly, left me shaking, woozy, and elated. Sex might be better than this, but not by much. The internal 'stuff' had been, for all intents and purposes, rooted out. And the best part? I never had to say a word, not one word, and yet, this healer KNEW what it all was. She 'sensed' (I don't know how)the hot part in the middle of my back, and the cold part in the lower part. Energy blockages, she explained. I was hanging onto something that I had to let go of, but couldn't. I was hanging onto a person, or persons. And I knew precisely who those people were. And so, incredibly, did she.

This is not a tarot card sham, or some shallow palm 'lifeline' reading, this is something altogether much, much more intense and, well, a little scary, to be honest. To have someone identify, often within seconds, of what you're feeling without your saying so much as 'hello' is just amazing. They say there are people who are blessed with this sort of ability, more of us than we realize, but we aren't taught to pay attention to the signs.

I'm one of them. I'll never forget my senior year of high school when I was working as a waitress at a tiny cafe. It was closing time and I was vacuuming the store. While I was vacuuming, I knew, I just KNEW that the phone was going to ring and I wouldn't be able to hear it. I knew the phone call would be for me. And it would be my mother. And she would tell me that someone I knew, a classmate, had died. As I methodically vacuumed, in some quiet trance, I just waited for the owner to cross the store and tell me the phone was for me. Which she did. I thought perhaps it was my accident prone friend from boarding school but that was too obvious. It turned out to be something far more sinister. Ryan Brownell. More of an acquaintance than a friend. Sure, we'd drank together at parties. He dated a girl I knew. And my mother called to tell me he shot himself. In his parent's basement. Just days before graduation. And I could FEEL that. It was hanging heavily in the air all around me. Quiet and dense.

There have been other times, countless times really, that I've just known something was going to happen long before it did.

But I can't tap into that readily. Not really. But some of us can.

And the woman who, literally (there's no other way to explain it) 'pulled' these people OUT of my body, just knows. She just does.

The experiences I have had with her (this recent session most profoundly) has taught me, more than ever, to be more open to the strangenesses in life, to accepting that while we are matter, while we are flesh and bone, yes, we are somehow a great deal of soul, too, and we are very much connected - undeniably.

As I let this go, as I left in my car in the late afternoon, lighter from releasing the energetic 'weight' of two people, I was, unfortunately, a bit too vulnerable, a bit too carefree with this sense of weightlessness. I don't know how else to see it.

Perhaps I felt too safe among the strange. Why else would I venture off with two strangers to the beach, for a day on a stranger's boat? What gave me the unwary right to feel that alright with something so untested? Where were my guards? Why was I so trusting?

A car is just a car. I consider this a lesson. A pretty major one. It could have been far worse.

It's like when you break up with someone and they say 'let's be friends' and you think 'I have enough friends.' Well, I have enough friends. I've met some amazing people in my almost five years here. I've also met some losers that I've had to cut loose. Try 'em and let 'em go. That's all part of it. I'm not going to say I'm done meeting new people. Not at all. But I will be much, much more careful with my pure heart.

This 'unbearable lightness of being' is, in all honesty, a beautiful terror. What can we do with this much space in our hearts? How much can we give when we've truly let go?

Not everyone deserves me. I have a lot to give. And I want to give it to the right people. That's not holier than thou or 'above' anything. It's just true.

And believe me, I embrace the strangeness of possibility. But I protect me. And this is my truest, most valuable lesson of the past 20 days.

Thank you Kathleen.

You enlighten me in the very instant you make me weightless.