Always Tomorrow, Never Today: What It's Like When Bad Luck Comes to Stay

by Ando Fuchs

For ten solid years now I have been tangled in the net of such epically bad luck, such foul fortune and evil fate that I can easily stand on this side of time's curve and see how so many people have backed away, backed away -- sometimes gently, sometimes with greater panic and urgency -- lest they, too, be splattered with my muck which might even be contagious, who can say?

I don't want to make a complaints list but I'll just let you know that by bad luck for me and mine I mean everything from my own near-death experience complete with white light and angels, the death of many family members who wasted away from corrosive cancers or Alzheimer's; the loss of my mother's house which didn't even have a bank loan and had been paid off for two decades but the Tax Man Cometh, and we ran, scraping by only by unloading most of our possessions. During this time my loved ones or I have been struck by illness, hospital stays, psych ward visits, near starvation, eviction, destitution....

Bad luck. That's all is is, right. Must just be lousy luck. This too shall pass.

And I'm not at all sarcastic when I say "this too shall pass" as my father always told me even as cancer ravaged his body and brain. I've had such an unusually blessed life that it seems almost spoiled to complain about all that bad luck that's followed such enormous prosperity for my first 30 years.

But the time comes when numbness takes over. When it becomes unbearable to think "what next?", or worse having to inform the few brave souls who stick around that yet again something's gone down and it's fuuuuuucked up.

I look around at my friends whom I was close to up until recent years when embarrassment of my constant state of penury and disaster led me to ground as if hiding from sight would at least protect me from the horrified and fearful looks on the faces of those trying to process mentally what I or my family were going through. Some folks simply couldn't even handle the stress of listening to the next bad thing forget about sticking around for moral support.

There have been times when I had no choice of course but to put my pride and dignity on the line to ask for help, just as I have been rudely, crudely been told to fuck off as well though I was seeking help from one I thought close enough to me to be honorary family.

This December I've lost a mentor to Alzheimer's. She hasn't died but she's not there anymore. In truth to call her a mentor almost minimizes the role she's played in my life at times. She literally saved me from homelessness before and as the gale winds of evil fate blow harder in my direction without her loving presence I again am standing on the threshold about to cross over into the night, rather entering some warm homely space.

I don't have anything profound to say about why these bad things happen and continue to happen like a carrion crow constantly circling the nearly dead in anticipation for a good meal. I spend a lot of time in meditation thinking about what I've done wrong...did I make the wrong choice there or here?...was I stupid in my choices?

And it's terrifying to stand out on the edge -- alone. Of course I have my adored mother with me but heavens she's getting too old to suffer this way especially considering that hers was a life of ease and luxury for 50 years.

It's not okay in our society to talk about the bad things, the sad things, the heartbreaking fear of having nothing and no one and no place to go. Nobody wants to hear it because the fear attached to such happenings is thick with the worry of contagion. A good friend can listen for only so long before deciding their duty is accomplished, and honestly I can't blame any one of them really. 

I always associate abject fear with deafening silence. Because when you're drowning it's impossible to scream even though the screaming in one's mind is overwhelming though it never reaches those standing by.

It's bad form in our society to have ugly troubles at all but for god's sake not during the holiday!! How dare you "spoil" everyone's fun!

When I found myself $300 short on rent this month my body was racked with an intense shiver and that sensation of cold water down the back - I had always read that description and imagined I knew what it meant but until you face a great, deep, unstoppable fear you can't actually know what it's like. 
Three hundred measly dollars. If I had to calculate how many times I've wasted $300 bucks or be shot in the head then I promise you my brains would be on the floor because I could never ever possibly  put a number to it. All the 300 bucks I ever spent now torment me in a tantalizing dance of temptation as I await the Eviction Fairy (kin to Anti-Santa) who will arrive soon and invite me to spend Christmas Day in some place other than the place I think of as my "home".

Bad shit happens and often it's so bad that out of respect the person afflicted doesn't even bother to share the news. Because it's considered gauche. It's an imposition upon others who feel their own hearts pounding at the visible marriage between the forces of nemesis and want to get far, far away from the operatic destruction that it plans to inflict. "Do they expect me to do something about their troubles?" is what the unafflicted are secretly thinking. "I can't be the one to be responsible for you"...or "I'm sorry to hear you're so troubled but best of luck, buddy".

On the other hand it's also nerve wracking and humiliating beyond all telling to confess the depths of one's troubles to a kind hearted well-intentioned soul. But I gotta say at this point in my life, in this chapter of Disasters and Damnation Politrixie Style I can accept evil fate with zero squeamishness for anyone else's discomfort. 

Pride goes before  a fall and hell, it's damn lucky about that because you need something soft to land upon when you finally hit the ground