Just My Thoughts
Christina M. Meide

PAGE TWO

The next check out point I remember was in 1989 when I was 26. I was selling perfume door to door, business to business, trying to build up enough money to become an owner of one of these franchises. My then boyfriend was doing the same and we were to be business partners.

We had headed up north Minnesota to visit some old friends of mine and to do some selling. It had been a long weekend and we were both extremely tired. He was driving my car which I had gotten from my mother not long before. It was the best car I'd ever had - sun roof and all.

We were just nearing Little Falls, Minnesota. I had slipped off my seat belt despite getting an overwhelming urge not to do so. I wanted to get comfortable so I could rest. When I laid down on the front seat, my boyfriend noticed that I did not have my seatbelt on and expressed that he didn't think that was a good idea. I laid there for a few more minutes, continuing to feel the insistence that I'd made a terrible mistake by taking it off. With this going on, I knew that I wasn't going to get any rest until I put that seatbelt back on. So, I sat up, put it back on and laid back down as comfortably as I could.

No more than fifteen minutes later, I was jarred awake by being thrown forward. I was suddenly unable to breathe as all the air seemed to have been pulled right out of me. The car had stopped and I sat in my seat stunned.

I remember saying, "I can't breathe". My boyfriend responded, "No kidding." I looked over at him and saw blood dripping from his hand that was covering his mouth.

It took several minutes to determine that we'd had a car accident. He had fallen asleep at the wheel and run into the back of a pick up truck. The truck had pulled out in front of us though he should not have done so. Even if my boyfriend had not fallen asleep and was driving normally, the truck pulled out in front of a vehicle moving far too fast to avoid hitting it. Upon impact, the truck shot across the highway, across the median, across the other two lanes and finally stopped on the side of the road. The truck was barely damaged.

My car, on the other hand, was totaled. The front end had crumpled up like someone squeezing an accordion. My boyfriend had stitches in his lower lip and I came away with bruised ribs from the seatbelt. Had I not been wearing it, I would have gone face first into the ashtray with full impact and prefer not to venture a guess as to what injuries I might have sustained.

I believe this was another check out point for me that allowed me the option to accept or decline. The feeling I had upon removing the seat belt, a kind of knowing that I shouldn't, the warning from my boyfriend and being unable to rest when I ignored both, I believe came from my spirit guides/angels.

I was being given ample opportunity to make my decision. When I gave in to the insistence that I should be wearing that seatbelt, I declined that check out point and things played out the way they'd been planned if I chose to stay.

There may have been another check out point when I was just a child, but I do not remember much about that one so cannot offer a lot in the way of possibilities. I'm not even certain how old I was.

Apparently, as a child, I was extremely susceptible to high fevers. I had come down with something which, as usual, caused a high fever. Whenever this happened, my mother always knew because I would ask her why she was moving so fast. In that state, it always seemed as though everyone was moving three times faster than they normally would. It was very disturbing to watch and made things seem very surreal.

My mother told me that they had taken me to the hospital because my fever was so high. Nearly to the point where my body could not survive it. Though I don't remember a thing, my parents said that they put me in an ice room to try to gain control. It apparently worked.

Had my repeated high fevers and comment about things moving so fast been the key to this check out point? Had I not asked my mother that question to let her know I was nearing the breaking point, even though I didn't know this consciously, would that have been my acceptance to the check out point?