---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v094) (the May 2011 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:						This writing also appears in this 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback “Looking Beyond” Order this 6" x 9" ISBN# book: (also available through amazon.com)

Order this writing in the book Prominent Pen dirt edition		get the 324 page May-August 2011 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

No Guts, No Glory

Danielle Bredy

    Intuition is underrated. Whether you view it through the lenses of a “conscience” or you feel it deep in the pit of your stomach, somehow it tends to throw its opinion wherever it sees fit. Gut feelings are something I know too well, and whisper in my ear a secret it knows before my mind wants to hear it. It screams at me when I’ve walked a step too far. All in all, I’ve learned that it predicts things for me like Miss Cleo wished she could before she was incarcerated. Gut feelings are always right. I can’t help but feel some thanks are necessary.
    It happens all of the time. Today, switching lanes on 94, a douchebag stayed within inches of my bumper. He didn’t have his blinker on, so I thought I was in the clear. I flipped my blinker instead of my finger, yet my gut feeling kicked in something awful and my foot froze. I didn’t go. He does. Surprise. The guy, by some divine miracle, misses me and spares me since it was his decision after all. Maybe you think to yourself that it’s all too common. People on the road that shouldn’t be driving are common, indeed. It makes me reconsider whether sixteen year olds (let alone most of the population) should be allowed. Lack of consideration is all over. But my gut feeling goes deeper than this.
    In relationships, my gut feeling has saved me more times than Kevin Costner did for Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. Consider intuition the should-have-been fifth girlfriend in Sex and the City. She would be there to tell Carrie that she might have screwed up (before she does, of course.) First instance of this showed up in my first serious relationship. The entire way over to his house one day, walking (which helped give my gut feeling time to intervene first) I had the feeling that it wasn’t going to go well. My pace slowed. I felt my feet plunge into a sinkhole that should have swallowed me entirely. It’s like my gut feeling was giving me a choice. “Hey, something weird is gonna happen. I mean, I could understand if you didn’t see it before. But now you’re walking toward it... and uh, I mean, you could save a lot of time if you just stopped. I’m not gonna be the one to tell you to stop, but I’m giving you a heads up.” In other words, “prepare to be disappointed.” This might seem like a self fulfilling prophecy, but I tend to cut my worries short if I find myself sauntering down that unkempt path. Obviously, I must have felt a tinge of hope this particular day because I kept walking. I finally got there, and like clockwork, I felt the tension rise. It felt weird, awkward, forced, and I sat there wondering why I’d wasted my time in the first place. It wasn’t for calories’ sake. Then, a realization began to radiate from my bones outward to my skin: I should have listened to myself.
    The only thing to do when you have realizations like that in life is to collect them, process them, and apply the lesson when necessary. To me, making mistakes is fine. Inevitable, even. The thing that kills me is making a mistake that I have the power to prevent more than once. It’s almost like I’d be fucking up to spite myself, and I don’t feel fondly for that sort of thing. Coincidentally, during my next relationship, my gut feeling announced itself with force. Logging into my Myspace account, I felt sick to my stomach. My intuition was kicking me where it hurt. Back when Myspace was big, people used to post bulletins. All of the time and to the point it was annoying. It reminds me of Twitter now. To me, if someone cares what you’re thinking that often, they might as well call you or try to have an actual relationship with you. Within these bulletins, people used to post surveys with randomly selected questions that, again, if people had a REAL relationship with you, they might know the answers to. A girl I was friends with was asked “who are your best friends?” She answered my boyfriend. Interesting. “What are some things that only you guys would know about?” She answered “staying up all hours of the night.” Right. Most people don’t need a gut feeling to know the correlation here, but I knew before I even logged on that something was up yet the thought of them hadn’t even crossed my mind before. Intuition leveled with me: “You might not want to click that. You aren’t going to like it.” After clicking it, it consoled me: “Well, at least you found out.” Intuition was right. I learned a lot that night. I learned that intuition had my back when the evidence wasn’t around, and that you can’t trust people to hone up to anything despite when it is. When I confronted my boyfriend? Yeah, he didn’t say a thing. At least I listened to myself.
    When things like that happen, people often suggest “counting your blessings.” They’re right. Even with one thing like that happening, I had a million aspirations better than that. Having learned from that mistake, I collected it, processed it and put it away. It’s not fair to subject a new relationship to what happened to you in your past, after all. Everything felt great about this one, everything was open. Things always find a way, though. One day he told me he and his friends were going to go out. Intuition kicked in telling me “There’s more to the story.” I listened, to an extent. With this relationship, everything was open. What did I have to worry about? Intuition reasoned with me: “There’s more to the story. Whether or not you’re going to bring it up is up to you, but don’t be shocked.” By this point, I couldn’t ignore that I got feelings like this for a reason. Sometimes we look for people to prove us wrong, though. That can be dangerous territory. I leveled with intuition and asked him who he was going with, and to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Having said the wrong words, he exited to tell me he didn’t care what I thought and was going anyway. Nobody is a fan of babysitting adults or being overbearing, so I let it go. Upon calling the next morning, he told me that he’d gone to the hospital because of the night’s festivities. “Told you,” Intuition said. “He should have listened to you.”
    Gut feelings are powerful, and have the can knock you back with force fit for a cyclone. If they fail at doing that, they can sober you up better than a cup of coffee the morning after or a cold shower. At the very least, tuning into them has given me a stronger sense of self. I trek along and absorb the things around me, but have an essential trust in myself. That’s something that intuition’s taught me. It helps me for those moments when you know the motive isn’t with your best interest in mind. Unfortunately, that’s also a situation you can count on. I owe mine a thank you for helping me realize that, and for keeping my interests at the top of my priority list when life doesn’t allow it to be. Now when I hear “you owe it to yourself,” I know it’s intuition to which I’m indebted.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...