I feel your pain
Can you feel it?
In case you haven’t noticed, things have been better.
And I’m not even really talking about the economy. So, I won’t bother mentioning the crippling cost of gas we’re all facing while Exxon Mobil reported a record 2007 profit of $40.6 billion. And I definitely won’t waste any ink telling you that in the time it took me to write this column the federal government has spent as much on the war in Iraq as I would earn at this job in a decade. And I certainly wouldn’t waste your time rehashing the fact that citizens of the Czech Republic were recently outraged as a visit to the hospital now costs them $1.85 while 20 percent of Americans, including myself, are uninsured and currently operating under the “Don’t Get Sick Plan.”
No, I’m just talking about just people I know. In my entire life I’ve never had so many of my friends and family just not doing very well all at the same time. One day my mom throws out her back (she thankfully recovered a few days later) and the next I hear that someone else I know got picked up for shoplifting.
And I’ve noticed I can feel these bad things happen before I actually hear about them sometimes too. And I’m fairly sure I’m not crazy.
The day actor Brad Renfro died in Jan. I was on my way to work when I put my MP3 player on random and the first file that popped up was a song the soundtrack of one of his best films, “Bully.” As I pulled into the office parking lot I thought about how much I liked this song and that movie and how I should watch it again sometime. Not two minutes later I was at my desk reading about his passing.
A few weeks prior to that one of my friends from back home barely survived after he shot himself in the head. I almost never remember my dreams when I wake up, but the night it happened I had a series of incredibly intense dreams about suicide by rifle. I woke up the next morning to buzzing of my cell phone. When I answered, one of our mutual friends came on the line and told me what had happened and that he was on the way to the hospital.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. I’ve heard interviews with both twins and long-time spouses say this before when talking about them simultaneously feeling it when their loved ones died. I can’t say for sure whether or not this is a spiritual phenomenon or a scientific one we just haven’t figured out yet, but I totally believe in it one way or another. Just because we haven’t been able to explain it yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I mean, it wasn’t until the last century that we figured out the double helix shape of DNA, made the atom bomb and cured polio. Who’s to say we won’t make some kind of breakthrough in this field one day too?
I just hope when this black cloud lifts off of all of us I’ll have my antenna up for when something really awesome happens to someone I know.