Strange Times...

I'm quite a rational person.  I'm not superstitious, nor do I have any religious beliefs.  I don't believe in fate or predestination.  At the same time, I have spiritual beliefs... and I think there's much more going on 'behind the scenes' than we can ever really know about.  Maybe that means my position is contradictory.  But so be it.

When my mother passed away, a lot of things happened in very quick succession that gave me the reassurance I desperately needed.  I found coins with significant dates on them.  I also found books and feathers, and I went to places on instinct because I knew I would meet someone significant there by chance.  And I did.  People who had some special connection with mum.  Someone gave me a Canadian penny in change accidentally one day.  The year of minting was the year I took mum to Canada on the adventure of her lifetime.  We went to the place, out on the priaries, where her own mother had lived and worked for a few years as a young woman, before returning to England to marry and settle down.  We met a woman out there who was distantly related to the people my nan worked for.  She lived close to the spot where the ranch had once stood. 

Coincidences?  Maybe.  But I derived great comfort from these things.  It made me feel I was being watched over, and given protection.

An earlier thing had happened - and on the day that mum came home from hospital after recovering sufficiently from the illness that would eventually kill her (she discharged herself, against the consultant's wishes).  As I pushed her wheelchair out into the hospital car park - in the aftermath of a thunder shower - a huge double rainbow appeared, arching right across the sky before us.  It took our breath away, it was so beautiful.  And I remember thinking that if mum hadn't discharged herself, and had stayed on that dismal ward she was on, she would never have seen such a sight.  It was a good omen if ever one was needed.  It was uplifting.

*

So to today.  I'm having my day off.  It's a very strange time for me.  Anniversaries.  And Christmas coming, which I don't look forward to now.  On top of this, I'm being bullied at work by a narcissistic colleague who's taken against me for some reason - most likely jealousy.  She's instigated situations to wrong-foot me.  She provoked an incident which led to my having a meltdown and punching a wall, for which I got a reprimand.  I was so upset by this afterwards that I went sick for two weeks.  When I returned, she smirked at me and asked me if I'd enjoyed my time off.  We're working apart (at my request), but she never misses an opportunity for criticism, or some other passive-aggressive ploy.  Last week, she parked her car next to mine in a local car park.  When I left work, there was a key-scratch in the paintwork that wasn't there when I got fuel on the way in.  I know it was her.  But, like the comments and criticisms, I can't prove anything.  She's gaslighting me.  I no longer know what's real and what's in my head. I saw my GP this morning, who has agreed to sign me off if I request a certificate any time in the coming weeks.  I just need to ring the surgery and ask.  She could see the state I was in.  I can't sleep.  I can't focus on anything - except this issue.  It's taken every ounce of physical, psychological and emotional energy I have.   I spoke to my Union today, but they were no real help.  The rep advised that I go down the route of formal complaints and mediation.  But I know that won't work against a narcissist.  It's what she wants - to know that she's getting to me, and that I'm on the ropes.  Afterwards, she'll just ramp up her game.  And what would I be complaining about?  As I said - what can I prove?  The other suggestion was to just leave and find something else.   That was the best advice the Union could give.  Either way, she wins.  It's just a question of sooner or later, because I know she won't stop until I'm gone.

About an hour ago, I was lying on my bed, trying to shut it all out and sleep.  I dozed, and was shocked when I woke up to notice it had grown dark.  Thinking it was late afternoon, I sat up - and realised we were in the middle of the most tremendous rain shower.  I got up and made a cup of tea.  Then I went and looked out of my bathroom window.  There, arching across the sky, was a brilliant rainbow.  I stood just staring at it for several minutes.  Then, as I did so, I noticed another rainbow - very faint - arching above it.  I noticed something else, too.  The right-hand ends of each rainbow were falling on very particular areas in the local landscape.  I went on Google Earth and drew lines from my window to those points.  One crossed over the roof of mum's old bungalow.  The other crossed over the stone seat on the downs, where her ashes are scattered.

It gives me some small hope in these times.

That's all it needs to do, really.