Bad Luck Mandy

My 1TB hard drive in my ridiculous desktop has decided to scream and scream in misery, and now it's on its last leg.  Although 80% of all my files ever are backed up, 80% of what I've done in the last YEAR is not.  I'm typing this out on my laptop I'm so glad I didn't sell yet wondering how in the world I will move 30GB of music in three minutes and I JUST CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE ABUSE!

Since April 2013, I've been headed in a downward spiral in the luck department.  Why does every day feel like a tiny beating to my soul?  Why am I down to my last few dollars "taking it day by day?"

The Universe / God / Karma / whatever has decided to make a list of every possible bad / unlucky thing possible to happen to me in no particular order out of boredom as payback for having such a seemingly successful, drama-free life at such a young age.  In the course of one year and three months I've tumbled down this list, pushed to my limits in the seemingly endless descent.

It all started when I owed the most I've ever paid in taxes: about $5,000.  BOOM goes the dynamite to all my untouched credit.  Then...

• My cat Jimmy caught what I call "indestruct-o" fleas which meant I got eaten alive for months, too.  They only went away when we moved away.

• I got laid off from my dream job (only made possible in the first place by the education I'm in loads of debt over).

• My younger sister got married before me.  (Mostly because her love life won the societal race, nothing against them.  I don't even want to get married.)

• I got cheated on (a not-so-long, uneventful story).

• My poor Beetle (my first car and probably first love if a girl could ever love a car) had bouts of "car amnesia" with multiple trips to the repair shop only to be traded away to be smashed into itty bitty pieces.

• I had to move in with a roommate again after a blissful year of living alone.  With an upgraded apartment came the same amount of rent as the craptastic, pipe-leaky, flea-infested solo effort, but with another human being around messing up my no-pants rule.

• Prominent members in my family are beginning to die off, like my aunt stolen from cancer and my grandparents of various old-age issues.  They all seem indestructible because they're yours until they're just... not there anymore.

Next came running out of money when getting that new full time job was about three months too late eating up all my savings and having to bum money off my parents (being the total and complete loser I am in money management and not seeing the dream-job-layoff coming).  A bunch of my friends and people I can't stand are getting engaged / married / having babies, which I admit is a never-ending spiral unless I decide to have no friends.  NOW we're full circle with this moment because my computer's hard drive is on life support.  FINE.  Kick me when I'm down because this issue is popping up "out of nowhere" yet at the worst possible moment.  Each attempt at backing any files up leaves me with a computer in misery, a good chance all may be lost, and no hope for a cure as yet another reminder of the cluster-flux that is my life.

I'm starting to wonder if I know about this hypothetical Bad Luck List, the Universe is gonna be all "Oh shit, she knows.  Hurry - check the rest of 'em off she don't know 'bout so she knows we mean business!"  The next logical steps on that list are: Jimmy getting fleas again, my overpriced phone dies or gets stolen, something goes wrong with my new-ish car, I lose my current job, my 400 dollar eyeglasses in all their unique glory break, my health goes down the toilet, the apartment catches fire, and then, ya know, I DIE!  Probably in that fire with the fleas and the husband I don't have.

But hey, there's been some good things happening where it's not all bad...

• At my sister's wedding, only ONE person mentioned the dreaded cliche "You're next, Mandy!"  (Of course it was mother dearest who blurted that out to everybody who didn't ask, as if that makes everything just super.)

• When I got laid off from that dream job, I was able to get a side job while looking for work right away.  In customer service.  As a not-people-person whose main job was to NOT interact with the public, herding thousands of people in and out of my car as a Lyft driver for six months has been my little hell on wheels.  (I've only had one person puke during a ride thus far, so I've got that going for me.)  Making friends with other drivers is another positive, and extra points for one of them being my roommate.

• Rent isn't threatened anymore since my job now as a content manager is again consistent and salaried.  I guess that means I'm miserable 11 months of the year instead of just that one for tax time.  (Of course this is a joke, if my employer's reading this - y'all read my blog.  It's what helped get me this job in the first place, yes?)  With each new position is a reminder that I haven't been able to keep a job longer than two and a half years, but hey - my resume is fatter than my waist size!  

• Speaking of waists, I'm a gym-goer all of a sudden.  Three months into a part-time routine of moving, shaking, and sweating, I've gained muscles I didn't know were possible to gain.  It's only a minor detail that I've lost 0lbs due to my poor-girl-junk-diet. 

• A flip-floppy moment came when I got money BACK in taxes for 2013 instead of giving the IRS my kidney every year with those "self employment" claims screwing me over (the swan song to that dream job).

• I don't have any STD's, clingy exes, or a "one that got away."  I am however still an overly tall, single, don't-wanna-mingle virgin who owns a cat with a man's first name.  Maybe I'll finally get around to lying to strangers about it, how I've been living with my Jimmy in a "domestic partnership" for three years.

• I have all my limbs, no diseases or tumor's I'm aware of, and I can basically sleep through the night, but I'm slowly loosing my mind.  (After going through my Bad Luck List, you would, too.)

If you chuckled along with my misery, at least I'm not the only one.  I just wanted to vent / update the world of my turmoil.  (And these monthly menstrual hormones aren't helping either.)  There are PLENTY of people out there with a lot more legitimate problems than me, but when it feels like literally everything's going wrong it's nice to have a place to vomit out my emotions.

Thanks, Internet!