But at thirteen, I had a new experience. I was standing in line at a local family diner waiting to be seated. A man and his wife were standing in front of me, when the man said,
“You could be such a beautiful girl if you would just brush your hair.”
So, I combed my fingers through my hair, and asked the man, “What’s wrong with my hair?”
The man seemed startled,
“What did you say?” he replied.
“I asked you what’s wrong with my hair, because you said that I would be such a beautiful girl if I would just brush my hair.”
“I did not say that!”
He seemed genuinely frantic.
“ Yes you did." I insisted.
“ No, no I thought it, but I swear, I never said it. I would never have said that."
He then tapped his wife shoulder, and told her to tell me that he did not say that.
“I don’t know,” his wife responded, “I didn’t hear a thing.”
I was sure that the man had been daydreaming and had accidentally spoke out loud without realizing it. But as time progressed it happened more and more frequently. It finally hit me that this was me, and that these truly were thoughts that I was picking up on. I felt very uncomfortable with this new reality, because how was I supposed to know when someone was speaking to me or when they were just thinking about me. I finally realized that when something that someone said sounded a bit off, it was probably a thought, and not something that was meant for me to know.
However, even with that new knowledge, there were still times that I could not identify where information came from. For example, one day while making copies at the copy machine, I found myself standing next to a colleague. We were not friends, but we often made small talk when we bumped into each other around the office.
I had remembered a recent conversation that we had had about her brother who was quite ill. She had also mentioned to me that her mother had taken a trip overseas, and so she had no help caring for her brother. She was trying to spend as much time with him at the hospital as possible, but it was hard balancing work and her brother's illness. Naturally, I asked her how her brother was doing, and if her mother was home yet from her trip. She asked me how I knew about her brother and her mother. I reminded her that we had spoken about it only last week. But she said that that was not true. She was sure that we had never had that conversation. The more that I tried to convince her of that fact, the more adamantly she denied it. She went from being annoyed and confused to down right angry.
"I have never told anyone about my brother, I certainly wouldn't have told you." she stated sternly. "Now, I want to know how you knew this. Who told you about my brother? Is this going around the office?"
I felt cornered. I was panicked. I could see no other way out. I had been so sure that we had had this conversation, but obviously we had not. She was a private person, and it seemed like she had never shared these details with anyone besides the HR department. All I could think about, was that somehow, this had happened again. I had somehow known something that I was not suppose to know. It was different this time. I actually had a memory of something that had never happened. I did not want her to panic and believe that people in the office were gossiping about her. I took a deep breath and decided to tell her about me. I figured it couldn't make her any more angry than she already was, at least I truly hoped not.
"Okay, I will let you know what happened, but you can't share this with anyone else." She readily agreed.
And so I told her about my abilities, and about how sometimes, I had trouble differentiating between what I know and what I have been told. I promised her that I never meant to lie to her. That I myself, had memories of a conversation that had obviously never happened. I promised her that no one else in the office knew about her brother, and that her secret was safe with me. I was standing there waiting for her to explode, but instead she seemed relieved. She believed me, because in her mind there was no other logical explanation. Ironically, after that, I became that friend in the office that she could talk to about her brother. Now that I knew about him, she felt more comfortable confiding in me. I, too, had a friend. Who accepted me for who I was, and did not pass judgement. It was absolutely liberating.
Over the years, I have learned to turn that part of me off, and I only use it when I absolutely need it. My children laugh and tell me that this power of mine is very unfair, because unlike their friends, they can never do anything behind my back.