Bathroom Down a Dark Hall
Recently I've been in the weeds of balancing work with my kids’ sports schedule. After a transportation snafu, I've had to spend a few days a week finding something productive to do in the town where my son has his practice, rather than driving home through heavy traffic, only to turn around and pick him up again. I found a lovely, small, public library and decided I would make the best of this weekly “in between time”. The building was built in 1932 and is charming, with two grand fireplaces and beautiful woodwork. I noticed that, despite the friendly staff and warm decor, the place was almost empty of patrons.
The main floor restrooms are for staff only. To use the public restroom, you can either take the elevator downstairs or walk down two sets of stairs. Either way, you then must proceed down one poorly lit hallway, and there you will find the public restrooms. After way too much coffee and three waters, I needed to go. I found my way to the basement and immediately noticed the isolation. There were several open rooms and an auditorium in the basement (yes, I investigated!) but they were empty of people. By the time I walked the dark hallway to the restroom, I had an uneasy feeling.
Mind you - that's me having an uneasy feeling as a retired law enforcement officer with twenty plus years of defensive tactics training, in addition to a multitude of additional weapons training. I entered the restroom marked “Women’s Room” and the thick door closed behind me. My immediate thought was, “No one would hear me if something happened down here”. The distance between where I was, and where the people in the building were, was pretty significant. The number of closed doors that put me out of earshot of others was noticeable. Generally speaking, I'm not easily unnerved, but the few times in life I've been profoundly hurt, physically or emotionally, were when I did not listen to my gut feeling. And my gut feeling about this isolated bathroom area was bad.
There are so many reasons why we ignore our gut, and one of them is not wanting to seem unreasonable. Is it silly that Miss Retired Detective felt apprehensive about a basement bathroom in a perfectly nice library? My younger self would say “definitely”. The truth is, based on hundreds of thousands of micro-experiences, incidents, situations, intuitions, and years of wisdom, I now know that I had identified a potentially isolated and therefore risky location.
So what? Hold the Starbucks Venti and multiple waters for two hours? No. When you gotta go - you go. But after that day, I decided to find another pit stop. I located a larger, more populated library, which was actually only four minutes from my son’s practice location. This bigger library had restrooms connected to the main reading area, so that I didn’t feel like I was unwittingly taking a solo haunted tour in a beautiful but desolate building! There are small adjustments that I make to maintain my personal safety on a regular basis. This requires awareness, flexibility and a willingness to sometimes do things that might look silly or simply not make sense to others.
When have you felt that uneasy feeling recently?
Some examples of that uneasy feeling related to personal safety in our everyday life come to mind; you are about to choose a parking spot (its raining and you got the closest spot!) when you see someone driving erratically near the area where you had intended to park and they make unusual eye contact as they pass you - park elsewhere or leave the parking lot entirely for a few minutes. You remember that you left your purse/backpack (with laptop inside) in the backseat of your parked car, but you live in a condo complex where vehicles are seldom broken into - get the bag anyway. Your child tells you they have a bad feeling around the new babysitter - ask more questions and do not use the sitter again, even if that’s going to be super inconvenient. You are about to leave the mall after working late, but see one car parked right next to your car and it just looks out of place- go back inside and request that mall security either escort you to your vehicle or drive to the area of your parked vehicle. Yes you can actually do that.
Commit to listening to and responding to your gut in situations like these, even when it may be uncomfortable, inconvenient or not make sense to the people around you.