My first article for Huffington Post was titled, "Thanks to Menopause I Now See Dead People." I can't really blame it on menopause, however. I've spent a lifetime seeing things that others don't see, hearing things that others don't hear, and eating things that everybody sees and hears.
My experiences aren't organized, nor do they always pertain to me. I'm not specifically clairaudient or clairvoyant or clair-anything else. In other words, this bevy of experiences offers me no income opportunities.
My 50s started out a little blah -- thinning hair, sweaty nights, spreading waistline. I tried to write a book about it but felt it would be cruel to my readers unless they were insomniacs.
I was bummed at the beginning of this decade, and I think those who care about me on the "other side" decided to jazz things up a little.
However, when you can't see said people on the other side, it tends to wake up you in a way that ensures you might never sleep again.
So, I decided to seek out a medium who could help me. I searched in a very responsible, mature way. I got on the Internet and looked for someone close to my house so I wouldn't have to drive very far.
My first session went well, except for the fact that I had written the time down incorrectly and was 30 minutes late. The medium, let's call her Ursula, offered me the remaining 30 minutes.
We walked to her tiny little room without windows, and once I got over feeling like Sybil's mother had just put me in a closet, I calmed down. The room was nicely decorated, and she seemed very friendly.
Like all women, she grabbed her purse which became a clown car of paraphernalia. She pulled out several decks of cards which terrified me, since I hate card games.
She informed me that they were Tarot cards -- and I wasn't sure if I should look directly at them. So I watched her hands as she laid them out on the table with the skill of a Las Vegas blackjack dealer.
Next, she pulled out a bunch of rocks (I was quickly informed they were called crystals) and dropped them on her desk.
"Okay, okay, your father's energy is here," she said. She hadn't asked if he had passed away, so that impressed me. Of course, she could have looked at me and made the assumption. I said it first.
She spoke very quickly to make up for the lost time, and I spent the next 10 minutes trying to decipher her words. But, overall, she was on target.
My husband's deceased father then decided to show up, which was frustrating. I only had 10 minutes left, and he seemed to be a slow talker.
The session ended, and she scheduled me for a second meeting so I could get a full hour.
I went home and told my son that I had seen a medium, and he looked at me. For several seconds. Then he shook his head and mumbled, "embarrassing," and went upstairs. I was momentarily grateful to still be crazy enough to mortify my children.
The next session started well. I told Ursula about some of the things I had heard, including very loud water dripping, almost as if in a cave, right before some shadow thing would appear in the bedroom.
She just said, "Huh," in that way you say "Huh," when someone has just revealed "I am a serial killer" and you don't know what else to say.
A few minutes after that revelation, with the door shut and no windows in the room, we both heard three very loud drips of water.
"Wow, that's never happened before," she mumbled.
I laughed and made some lame joke about being a drip, which she was way too young to understand. I was waiting for my son to reappear saying, "You are SO embarrassing."
A couple of minutes later, we both heard a male voice in the room.
I had heard it before, and thought she'd be cool with it since she talks to dead people all day.
But she proceeded to wrap-up the session at record speed, at which point one of her crystals sort of jumped off the desk and land at my feet.
"Well, I guess that's yours," she said, throwing things in her purse as if the building were on fire and we'd been asked to evacuate.
We connected a few days later, and she said, "Yea, um, I think you need to see somebody else. I'm just afraid something will connect to me. So . . . ."
This was kind of like having a doctor say, "You can't come in to see me, because I'm afraid I might catch your cold."
I left deflated, confused, and more than a little concerned. If a medium didn't want to deal with the situation, then what the heck was I supposed to do about it?
Between my husband's chemo treatments and some other not so fun life events, it hadn't been a good year. And now I was getting fired by someone who deals with the other side.
When you are rejected by both this side and the other side, it's a little much to take.
But fire me, she did. And I have to admit that things have been pretty quiet as of late. I also sense that my personal power is returning as I hit my mid-50s.
How do I know this?
Because I am the woman who frightened a medium.
While it's not the golden ticket, it's something.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
