I used to bemoan not having a full length mirror anywhere in my home, not that I am particularly vain, but that it did often mean I went out inappropriately dressed! A stain on my clothes unnoticed or shoes that did nothing for the outfit, etc. So I bought myself 4 square self-stick-on mirrors and applied them to the wall next to my wardrobe.

A few weeks later, not one but all four of my stick-on mirrors unstuck themselves and fell to the floor, breaking on the hard tiled surface below. Now is that seven or twenty eight years bad luck? When I am feeling good it's easy to pooh pooh superstition, but the way my life has been these past five years I really wonder!

It seems as though ever since those four broken mirrors I have had nothing but bad luck. Everything I touch seems to turn to dross. Even positive things turn in on themselves and bring me down. Perhaps take me even further down, once I have been 'up'.

I decided that I was making bad decisions, but it's really hard to be objective as opposed to emotional when feeling low. So the question I am now asking myself is "Was it all my fault?" Of course we always think it is, but surely not all of it?

It started when my husband and I split up after 30 years of marriage and I felt really low and worthless. I must have cried for a year. Friends and family were supportive but that support grew thinner the longer I wallowed in self-pity. It was during this period that the 'bad luck' started.

Thankfully time has blocked out memories of some of the smaller, frustrating, annoying and at the time downright depressing things that happened and I am counting on time to ultimately remove the bad memories of the bigger badder stuff. I do worry though that I have got into a downward spiral and will compound the misery I pile upon myself and hoping, beyond hope, that it's only two years to go and not twenty three more years of bad luck!

I wish I had an inspirational thought, idea or suggestion to share with all you kind people who so generously share of your own but I don't - yet! I just keep building on myself, using the ups to balance out the downs, looking for inspiration elsewhere, trying to be proactive and making sure I don't spend too much time alone.

Alice

A Moodscope member.