To say that I have had really bad luck over the last six months (or so) would be like describing your fire-y case of genital herpes as "just a little tickle." On October 24th a very close friend of mine took his own life. Since then, everything seems to have been coming up anti-Heather. I contracted that horrible influenza bug everyone in America was so sickened with. My husband's uncle stepped in front of a moving truck and was killed instantly. My grandfather died of complications from pneumonia after three, long and sleepless days in hospice. My husband caused a car accident - totaling his car; and the new used car he got for me (in exchange for mine) needed a new transmission just three weeks after we purchased it. You get the point: things have been rough.
If I've learned one thing over these six months of - what I like to call - "Hell on Earth," it's that how things fair for you after a rousing bout of bad luck is all in how you deal with it. Let's examine some of my coping mechanisms to see what I mean.
Dealing With Death
The death of a loved one is devastating of its own right. For me, the hardest of the three deaths I lived through these last six months were the suicide of my friend, and the natural death of my grandfather. Both were so important - are so important - to who I am as a person that their absence in the world makes everything seem wrong. People say "this too shall pass" and all that other cliché jargon invented to gloss over the pain; but I know that the only way to get on with life is to relive the memories of them.
I don't mean hold on to the memories, I mean to relive them. After my grandfather's funeral, the first thing I did was drive to the lake near where he lived (just outside of Yosemite) to feed the birds. That is what my grandpa and I did, and the only way for me to deal with him being gone was to continue to do things we did. On the day I was born, Grandpa bought donuts for the entire school he taught in; so now on weekends, I eat donuts. I love my grandpa enough to work off that extra pound or two. The same goes for my dearly departed friend: we used to drive to the beach and just sit and talk, so now once a week I drive to the beach. Or to the park where we used to hike; which hauntingly enough completely empties every time I go to it - since the day he died. It's just us, reliving the memories and getting through the bad luck by staying together - even when we are as far apart as anyone can be.
De Stressing About Money
It never fails that every, single time my husband and I catch up on bills, something comes up. This last six months has been a total money suck with the cars. First he crashed his car, then our insurance company took almost two months to decide to total it. That was roughly three thousand dollars on our credit card for rental car coverage - that was more than we spent on our wedding (no joke). And then the transmission problem came along, which put us close to ten thousand dollars in the hole from car trouble.
No way, we don't need to go to the dentist or eat anything but Top Ramen for the next few months, right? While we certainly haven't starved or rotted all our teeth out (yet), I have started collected burlap sacks for the next growth spurt.
Which brings to my bad money luck coping mechanism: I laugh. There is nothing I can do about the insurance company taking forever; or the transmission in my new used car failing on all gears. The only thing I can control is how much I laugh about it all - which, in these particular instances, was a lot. People may think I'm crazy now (I am); people may think I'm heading for the loony bin (I did just get fitted for a straight jacket). I don't really care, I laugh so hard at everything during money problems to feel just a little better about that which I cannot control. And it works.
When I went to renew my husband's rental contract, the guy talked on and on about how much he loved my husband's brother (who is a manager at the rental car corporate office). He wouldn't shut up about my brother in law to such a point that I just started laughing until he asked "what's so funny?" Being polite, I said it was nothing. As I rode in the tow truck after my Jeep broke down, I did the same thing; only this time it was because I Instagrammed the shit out of our drive through the weigh station. This time, the tow truck driver got why I was laughing - because I was stressed, the weigh station was full of bizarre oddities of the trucking world I had never seen before; and so he laughed too. It was probably the most fun I've had in years.
Learning To Let Go
So the most important thing, which I hinted at above, is that when all else fails and bad luck just won't stop, I just have to remind myself to let go. I can't control a lot. Really, I can't control anything. If I'm going to be God/Nature's toilet bowl; or if the health and problems of others is beyond my reach of help and compassion, the only thing I can do is be me. Be myself. Be there for who I can be there for, and love everyone. This way, when bad luck continues to reign down - when more people die (which they all will), or when more tragedies strike (which is inevitable), I know I've done the best I could.
By laughing, loving, reliving, and letting go of what I can't control, bad luck is pretty easy to get through. When I look back at my trip with the tow truck driver, where a new transmission was burning a hole in my pocketbook, I still can say that I had a fun time that day in spite of every bit of bad luck that was had. And every time that park clears when I go to hike with my lost friend, I feel more filled with his love and presence than even some of the times we were physically together. It isn't about being positive, it's about learning to love the bad luck for all the good things it can bring.
0 comments:
Post a Comment