One of my good friends is Korean and has her degrees in clinical psychology; she once explained to me that in counseling southeast Asian groups in particular, one of the concepts she must engage is the widespread belief in luck. If things are not going well for you in any kind of sequence, then you are having a "bad luck year" and this is likely to shift after the lunar new year. This belief, as I understand it, has nothing at all to do with religion the way someone can believe in both fate and free will at the same time - but that's another matter for another inquiring moment. Nevertheless, I always found it amusing that one of her responses to her patients, the largest group of whom she counseled post-trauma, was to debunk this belief by telling them, "you're in America now, and in America, we make our own luck." But in the very same breath, she might advise me - after my recent series of traumatic events - to just be patient until the coming of the new year. It struck me this afternoon at the gym that I am feeling better, and it's been since the new year (Tet, not 1 January)...
My last lunar new year began with a nervous breakdown from the overwhelming stress of school and work. I feel terrible trying to explain what is so stressful about what I do because unless you've been there yourself, it's impossible to believe that such a thing can send one off the deep end. I know three people who've been divorced in grad school, and I know several more who never even finished programs. Jamison is always accommodating, but I'm sure he must be tired of hearing "right now, I just need..." from me and no matter how that phrase gets finished, it results in his eating dinner alone, or going out alone, or listening to one more day of the weeping mess that has often been me of late. Time to do something really great for the man, I think.
But things didn't improve much after the breakdown and the implementation of medications; even though some pretty great things happened last year to be sure - Disneyland, London, various lovely moments with family and friends - I don't think I realized how much I had been generally suffering until it all came to a head this past January (see varied psychotic-rage driven entries prior). Comps exams took a major toll on my health and my well-being; the emergency surgery and ruptured gall bladder at Thanksgiving time threw me a major curve ball too. I had never so much as had my tonsils out, let alone major surgery I didn't even get a chance to think about it before it happened. Again, it was one of those things no one else could see - my scars were healing but I wasn't and I didn't know it. I went through Christmas in a haze of worry and insomnia at Sami's impending spinal surgery and I have to say that I was so completely unprepared for what followed that I still don't think I can process it in any real way. The rest I've chronicled in this blog, and as I return to reading them months after the fact, I completely understand why my doctor insisted I see a therapist; I understand why people were afraid of and for me; and I understand the bad luck year phenomenon in a whole new light.
The reason I bring all of this up today is because I finally feel the fog lifting and it's glorious and illuminating at the same time. The collection of all these things - even if they don't sound like much in the grand scheme of suffering in the world, perhaps - created an existential crisis of astronomical proportions. I feel older somehow, or at least my age, which I haven't ever felt before. And it's not bad. Nice to know my good luck year has started.
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