Superstitious or a littlestitious?

Isn’t being superstitious another to way anxious? Well, regardless, I am indeed superstitious.

For years, I said I wasn’t superstitious because I don’t believe black cats or the number 13 are bad luck. Breaking a mirror can cause some means cuts to the fingers and walking under a ladder puts one in danger of something falling on your head. Sometimes superstitions just give common sense a nice twist.

I love science, and I like to think I understand cause and effect. I’ve educated myself about logical fallacies and cognitive biases. But a Vulcan I am not.

Recently, a therapist reminded me that every time I get caught up in the Land of What-If I could head over to What-Is. Fewer superstitions reside in the Land of What-Is. My nervous system feels like a stranger there.

So what makes me confess my failure to live a logical life?

Well, this week has been amazing! I’ve always lived with anxiety about a thousand things, but the last few years, starting with the drama surrounding my dad, tension and worry have been constant companions. But this week has been remarkable. First, the blue wave! Y’all…I’m not really a pessimist, but holy smokes, I never imagined Texas being so blue. Yes, a long road awaits, challenges and pitfalls, but I’m letting myself feel that joy. And a local bookstore is now selling my books! Wow! I’m grateful and surprised. And my son is visiting! Seeing him and his girlfriend bring me joy times ten. And I had my yearly checkup with my cardiologist and everything looks good. (A couple of weeks ago, my oncologist said the same!) Look at all those good things! I’d forgotten what such happiness felt like.

What exactly is there to be superstitious about?

Magical thinking. The unpleasant feeling that admitting to such good things means the universe is going to come along and hit me in the back of the head with a bat. Even writing these words feels like tempting fate.

I also knock on wood. Feels silly to do so, but also slightly risky not to. Again, why tempt fate?

A few weeks, I was going through photographs and found duplicates of several pictures of my dad and plenty of pictures of people I don’t know. Why keep them? Throwing photographs away, even terrible ones, blurry and faded, feels wrong, as if somehow cursing the people photographed, even if those people are dead. Logically it makes no sense, but yet…why tempt fate?

I did manage to throw some of the photos away and I still feel kind of bad about it. When I got my dad’s belongings from Florida it was one box. Inside were his hearing aids, his glasses, and photographs. That’s it. One of the photos was of my grandmother. It’s a photo dad has had all of my life at least. And it was in a frame. That frame had to be decades old. So old, in fact, that the photo had adhered to the glass. Unfortunately, the glass had shattered and the frame was bent. I don’t know how that happened, but it looked…purposely damaged. I’ll never know, but the problem was the photo wasn’t salvageable. Shards of old glass jutted outward, tearing the picture. My efforts to remove the photo ended up with me nearly shredding my fingers.

I had to throw it away. I wrapped the mangled frame, broken glass, and tattered photo carefully (out of respect for my dad and my grandmother and for the folks who pick up the trash) and said words of thanks and farewell before dropping into the trash bin. And still I hoped I wasn’t angering the spirits.

So, last night my son was out with his friends, and for a while I didn’t know where he was and he wasn’t receiving my texts. WHICH IS FINE BECAUSE HE IS AN ADULT. But y’all…this is the curse of being constantly in touch with people. A lost wi-fi connection feels like the worst thing has happened. And I couldn’t help but think–this is what I get for having such a great week. I tempted fate and fate replied.

Which we know is ridiculous. First off, the world doesn’t work that way. I’m not a five-year-old believing my thoughts control the universe. And if the universe is a sentient being, why imagine it in the worst way, as if it’s a malevolent toad waiting to knock us down and poison our joys. The universe is an amazing place we barely truly understand. Whatever it is doing, it is not waiting around for me to dancing for joy just so it can say, “No, you don’t, missy. Tick, tick!” The universe is doing what it does and I am not its center.