maybe unlucky, but certainly blessed

I've been thinking about luck the last few days. We watched this amazing video of Mike Leach explaining how he picked his team captain (Spoiler: He picked the luckiest guy on the team). Apparently that captain's record for winning coin tosses was "something incredible." 

So it makes me think. Is luck a real thing? Are some people just born with an unseen gift of luck the way some are born with musical gifts or love of art? I had one friend who claimed an unusual amount of luck (winning radio contests, drawings, etc). So maybe? Maybe it's a thing? I'd like to conduct some coin toss experiments on people claiming to be lucky and see what exactly does happen. 

Once upon a time (2009) in a far away place (a canyon in Salt Lake City), I was several days overdue with Mia, Adam had recently been laid off from the job he got fresh out of graduation and finding a new one was a rough road. (again, 2009) All of my family was together for Thanksgiving snowed in at a vacation rental where the kitchen was apparently filled with mouse droppings. I only knew the good stuff about that trip. And, to me, it was very good. Even if I was completely panicked the whole time that I would go into labor and be stuck on icy canyon roads trying to get to a hospital. But I didn't and I wasn't. 

Right before we left, my very unemployed Adam and my very, very pregnant self were standing outside the house with my parents and one of my brothers. My mom had the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey and it was decided that Adam and I should wish on the wishbone. The thought process, of course, being that either way the luck went, we'd both win. And we really, really needed some luck. 

We stood in the snow, I took one side and Adam took the other. Ready. Set. Go. We both pulled. 

In a complete mockery of all physics I've ever witnessed, the top of the wishbone FLEW INTO THE AIR and landed off in a snowbank. Our two, unlucky selves were left with equally small pieces. 

This is 100% a true story. I couldn't create it if I wanted to. And at the time I really didn't want to. I was a little horrified at the message the universe seemed to be sending us at that moment. Could it be more clear? There was obviously no luck left IN THE ENTIRE WORLD for us. 

But we needed something more than luck. We needed divine intervention. 

In the end, that's exactly what we got. 

Mia (EVENTUALLY) arrived healthy and happy and changed our lives forever for the good. Adam, after a string of unbelievable bad luck (that I'm now, 9 years later, ALMOST ready to laugh at) was hired in the middle of a hiring freeze into a very stable, comfortable job and that set off a chain of events that led us to Chicago and there, through straight up miracles (but never luck) he found a job and career path he never could have dreamed up. 

When we were considering moving to Ar-kan-SAUWCE, Adam and I went to the temple trying to decide if we could leave our most perfect life. For real. Family, friends, a ward we loved, a job he loved an insane amount, comfort, ease, schools we liked, on and on. It was a really, really good life. While we were at the temple I felt strongly that I shouldn't worry about it. 

And I was like. I don't know what that means. 

Worrying is basically my job. Only I'm way better at it than I am at my actual job. 

So I settled into thinking that to not worry about it meant that I wouldn't WANT to worry about it. Moving would feel easy and right and uncomplicated. Moving would be a simple process, because clearly that's the only way I, Captain of team worry, would not worry about it. 

Well we did it. We moved. And nothing was simple, nothing seemed to go right, none of it made sense, nothing didn't feel complicated, breathing hurt all the time for weeks and I just cried a lot. 

We had a lot. 

A LOT. 

Of bad luck. 

It's hard to really get into all the craziness that went on. From weird stuff with the moving process, to changes with the job, to my kids being shuffled to a different school because 3rd grade was full at our school, to having no cell service in our house and really terrible internet for a while, to EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE BEING BROKEN OR BREAKING (including a doorbell that about every 8 times it rings just buzzes until it gets rung again, but of course I didn't know what was buzzing and I thought the house was going to blow up for a while there), to my inability to socialize like a normal human being (including a night full of awkward interactions EVEN IN MY DREAMS [also, one of those was with Mitt Romney, which was . . . different]), to just STUFF. 

And there's also been a lot of good. And things are genuinely fine, so STOP WORRYING ALREADY, but the general message is, a weird amount of bad luck. And most of it extremely comical. So I promise this isn't meant to be soooo dramatic. 

Anyway, today, I felt really calm. I realized that with everything that's gone wrong, nothing is actually broken and that's a huge relief. Things feel bad sometimes. Things felt bad in 2009, but everything really worked out to be miracles in the works and took us down really amazingly cool paths we couldn't have found if we went about life the normal or expected way. I realized I really really don't need to worry, not because things are simple and just seem to be "working out," but because, while I don't know if lucky is real, I know that God is. I know that things are working out well and we feel really divinely supported right now. And things will work out better than we deserve, because somehow that's how things go when I CHILL OUT AND LET THEM. We aren't especially lucky, but we are weirdly and insanely blessed beyond belief and that's something more than luck. And that's really how I feel about everything. Things are good. And things will be good some more.

So yeah. It was unlucky for Adam to lose his job while I was 7 months pregnant, but I sure am thankful for it. I probably won't ever be THANKFUL the dishwasher broke 16 thousand times the first few stressful weeks we lived here, but hey, at least it's funny to me now. I'm starting to realize that all of the best things in my life have come from being unlucky, so, today I'm thankful not to always be lucky.

Besides. When I finished jotting this down this song turned on. So it's probably a sign.

Also today an old guy at the store called me darlin and it warmed my icy heart and I was like. Yes. Now I can happily live here and that seems pretty lucky too.