As someone who really loves science, it’s hard for me to admit that I MAY be just slightly superstitious. I don’t know that I really believe in fate, magic, or astrology (though I did get a tarot card reading in P-town as a semi-joke in high school… all I remember is that she said I’d end up with an older man. I laughed as a 17 year old because “whatever”, but I ended up marrying Barry who is 10 years my senior. So..). Anyways. I am slightly superstitious and I will admit it. I wore a rally cap in 2004 during the ALCS championship. I cross my fingers. I wholeheartedly believe that bad luck comes in threes (and incidentally, patients seem to die/code in threes too…). Full moons wreck havoc on healthcare professionals everywhere- you would be hard pressed to find a doctor or nurse who wouldn’t agree.
So, as we get down to our last few months in Florida I’ve been really reflecting on our time here. I remember the day Barry called me when we were still living in Rhode Island to tell me that his new duty station was going to be in St. Petersburg, FL. At that time, we just had Max and he had just turned 2. I was working full time, we were in a really good place financially, in our marriage and we had kinda-sorta figured out this parenting thing. We were so excited to move south away from winter and snow and experience a part of the country neither of us had lived.
We decided after careful consideration that we would purchase a home. It was a good time to buy and we knew our mortgage would be less than rent would be- by hundreds of dollars a month. It was so exciting as neither of us had owned a home before. Fast forward a few months to our closing date:
6/6/16
Yeah. I never really put it all together until recently. We closed on our home on 6/6/16. 666. It has been filled with some of the worst life circumstances imaginable. Health issues for Barry and for me, miscarriages, really scary and uncertain diagnoses for Lauren, hospitalizations, sketchy childcare situations, and the loss of a baby. Professionally, this has been a really rough tour for Barry, too. One of those “Murphys Law” kind of tours where hiccup after hiccup caused unanticipated setbacks.
I think when we first nailed down a closing date for our home, one of us may have mentioned that it was 666. We laughed and joked “I hope that’s not an omen about how this station is going to be!”
HA! Jokes on us. Maybe there is something to be said about superstitions after all. I think going forward, I’ll be more aware of them because clearly thats the reason for all of our bad luck.