If Not for Bad Luck

You know, I stole a line from Velvet several years ago (2009)...summing up a year as "spectacular for its suckitude."And I've labeled nearly every year since as such.  It has been a bloody horrible run of suckitude!

• 2009 - Economic downturn and financial woes, Station Fire, loss of our trails in the rains that followed.  I posted on the very same day that I longed for better days. 
• 2010 - a spider nearly killed me and a 23 year friendship bit the dust and the pain still reverberates -  even though I know I'm better off without someone who simply doesn't value me and is so comfortable lying. 
• 2011 - My dear sister started her third and final battle with cancer. 
• 2012 - More trips back home to be with my sister. By the holidays, we knew her battle was almost over. 
• 2013 - My sister passed and I spent the year adjusting to her loss...still am really. I got mad at myself just the other day for not calling her in so long! 
• 2014 - Mabel died way too quickly.  Torn labrum and impending surgery on my shoulder. A new career teaching... I don't love it  but I don't hate it any more - most days.  Oh, and a fire! Or two! 

I've already told you about the local bakery that burned. I can't tell you loss I felt...from losing a selling venue to no where for a quick outing with friends.  As I've watched the building sitting there all burnt and sad, I've thought a lot about the loss from a fire. But that didn't mean I wanted to experience it first hand...

Almost two weeks ago, the tenants that live in my townhouse - my first home of my own - called to tell me it was on fire! We think it started in their dryer... clean your lint filters people! Luckily, it was confined to the garage.

And to add insult to injury, neither of us have insurance. I had to make some rough choices back in '09... health insurance or my interior townhouse policy. I chose health knowing it was a  calculated gamble. My homeowner's association has an exterior policy that will return the home to four walls and a roof. The rest is up to me. But I'm on the hook for the ginormous deductible... about 1/3 of my last year's below poverty wages!  OY! Some part of me is so scared, I don't know what to do. And some part of me knows there is nothing to do...yet.

 

I just know that I am fed up with negative. I'm tired of dealing with BS. Negative people exhaust me (and I have one I must talk to every single day). I am going to focus on the positive if it kills me! Oddly enough the things I have to pay for in my own unit were on my to-do list anyway: the water heater was old, the laundry cabinets were saggy, the patio door didn't close. The only extra is a garage door opener. Not too bad...

Maybe this gets my perpetually late renters out of my house. Maybe this is about shutting one door to open another. Maybe it's to teach me to never gamble with insurance.  I don't know... but I will rise from these ashes!