What are the layers of self-doubt? There must be layers, like sediment and ash. I think they are row upon row of bad experiences. Here is a time our judgement was poor. Here is a risk taken and lost. Here is an outstanding failure. Here is harm done. They pile one on top the other and compress. The pressure narrows our vision to one fine point: something is coming, and it cannot be good.

Think of this, though, as a trick of the light. That fine point is a view of something far distant. It is blurred and warped by shadow. It could be a horrific disaster. It could be a perfect dream. We cannot know which until it is right in front of us.

I am a planner by profession. I am paid to study patterns and read the future. I have done this for years. My predictions are the basis of the spending of millions of dollars. I tell you this so that you know that I have experience with portents. I tell you so you know that I am serious when I say the future is unreadable. Part of future planning is planning for your failure to predict.

Still, I fall into the habits of my childhood when I faithfully stepped over every crack and threw salt over my shoulder if I spilled even a grain. I fall prey to the superstitious idea that one bad event can become a harbinger of ill to come, no matter how disconnected.

We had an overly warm night recently and my daughter couldn’t sleep. I woke to hear her literally bouncing on the walls. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, thud! She did this for hours.

In the morning, when I dragged myself into the living room, I found her on the couch still wide awake. I thought about how tired she was going to be. I thought back to all of times I struggled with so little rest. “You’re going to have a rough day,” I told her.

Her only reply was a laugh. Then, she rolled over and promptly fell to sleep.

I poured myself some coffee and got a cup full of coffee grounds. There was a spider in the shower which I only discovered when my hair was full of shampoo. I began to convince myself that I was going to be the one who had a rough day.

Pulling onto the highway on my way to the office, I got the choice of being behind one of two logging trucks or a construction vehicle hauling rebar. Was I going to go for the death in Final Destination or The Descent?

Then I thought, No. I’m not going to die and I’m not going to have a rough day either. My daughter knew. She laughed off my prediction. I could laugh it off, too.

The rest of the day was fine. Work kept me busy and engaged. I wasn’t too tired. I listened to an audio book on my drive home and enjoyed the story enough to distract me from the stop and go traffic. When I got home, my husband and daughter were happily making miniature foods out of clay. She had a great day.

The wall bouncing, the coffee grounds, the spider: these were not omens. They did not portend anything. My daughter was anxious and restless and was entertaining herself. I put the basket into the coffee pot wrong. The spider had crawled to cooler air. They had nothing to do with my future.

I could have allowed them to be omens, though. I could have searched for the trouble spots that could resolve into a rough day. I could have surrendered to lethargy and let it alter my mood. But it’s my mood and I decide it.

So, I must remind myself that though I may feel weighed down by the mistakes of my past, I cannot allow them to alter the shape of my future. My vision may feel narrow, but the road is wide. And, if I happen to see a black cat amble across it, I will let it take its path, and I will continue on my way.