Part 1: Not letting your misfortunes define you.
I’m sure you’ve noticed how Social Media tends to focus on the positive highlights of people’s lives. In fact, according to social media, there is rarely a bad day. But, trust me, living here in LA is not all sunshine and Disneyland. I recently had a string of bad luck that approached becoming biblical in scope.
Generally speaking, my friends will tell you I’m not a drama queen. But the following list of events all occurring in a four month period definitely made me feel like I merited “drama queen” status:
- My apartment got infested with bedbugs. Which I kindly passed along to two friends and my boyfriend at the time. I had to get rid of most of my furniture. I spent so much time at the laundromat people thought I worked there.
- Shortly after this, my car was rear-ended while I was sitting at a stop light.… not really unusual in LA. But, seeing the other car vanish down the street as I pulled over out of traffic was a new experience.
Both of my cars damaged in the LA maelstrom.
- Soon after the hit-and-run with Satan, my damaged car just broke down and the insurance company declared it “totaled”. First no furniture, now no car.
- At the same time, I was receiving creepy texts from a so-called band promoter.
- While out of town for my brother’s wedding, a pipe burst in my apartment and no one was home to notice. My place ended up looking like the pool at the local YMCA. Most of my remaining furniture and belongings were ruined. Worst of all, I lost part of my vinyl collection and all of the classic sleeve art while gaining a lot of mildew
The sleeve art for my vinyl collection was ruined.
.
- It can’t get worse, right? Wrong. To fix the pipe in my apartment, holes were knocked in the walls and not patched right away. This is apparently an open invitation to rats, who promptly became my new roommates. Awww!
New roommates!
- Then, maybe because I now seemed a bit like Typhoid Mary, I got dumped by someone I really liked.
- The day after being dumped, I started receiving text messages from numerous guys thinking I was an “escort”. This went on for about a week. Apparently, they had found an ad. They knew my name, number, what I looked like, and where I lived. As there was no actual ad, I concluded that this was a bad joke and someone was messing with me. I have my suspicions about who was responsible, but it’s over now. Classic trolling.
Creepy texts from guys who said they saw me in an ad for “escorts:.
- My best friend moved away.
- A friend of mine had also experienced some bad luck and I testified as a witness on her behalf in a stressful 7-hour court hearing.
- I’ll finish off my list with a second car accident. I was driving home in the car that I had just acquired, when a guy who was double parked opened up his driver’s side door without looking as I was driving by. Bang. What’s a car in LA if it’s not smashed up, right?
Now to put things in perspective, when I hear all the news about terrible things happening to people in the world, I can see my misfortunes are trivial. However, I feel like my generation is always trying to attach meaning to everything. “Why me?” I wondered if I had bad karma or had done something awful in a past life. Had I brought this all upon myself? I feel like I’m a decent person, a good friend, I recycle, I pick up my dog’s fecal matter… So, maybe shit just happens when it happens and we all have to go through it. Okay, but I refuse to let misfortune define me. I don’t want my self introductions to be: “Hi, I’m bugs, rats, flood, heart-broken.” So where is the positive side to all this? Well, for one thing, maybe I am more impervious to pain now. But hey, universe, I clearly understand you call the shots and I do have the upmost respect for you. But, I would like to catch a break soon.
Tune in next week for Part 2: How to get over a shitstorm.
Best regards,
-Lia