Jinxed...

Good things have not been happening in my corner of the world recently. In July alone, Lisa lost her job, I found out that Darrell's father had passed away, my cousin Danielle has been suffering from terrible gall bladder attacks, Irene's husband was rushed to the hospital for an emergency MRI due to debilitating headaches, Katherine faced a major immigration crisis concerning her beloved housepets, and my mom and I spent time on Sunday taking clothes and furnishings over to my friend Natasha, who lost a large chunk of her possessions in a devastating apartment fire last week. I was starting to wonder, is it me? Am I some sort of Typhoid Mary of bad luck? How could bad things be happening to so many of the people in my life?

Then, yesterday, when I was working on a post, I happened to glance over at the list of tags I have employed in my blog, noting with relief that the only tag I had used just once was that for "health." I congratulated myself on my good fortune for the past few months. Aside from my mono scare, I had been relatively healthy. I shouldn't have tempted fate.

This morning, when I went to turn off my alarm, I felt a horrible pain in my shoulder and neck. I stopped short, unable to reach the alarm and silence the horrific buzzing. I finally did it, but I could barely get out of bed, and every attempt I made to move anything above my elbows resulted in excruciating pain. I managed to take some Motrin and slink back to bed. I called in sick.

Clearly, I jinxed myself with my premature self-congratulation on my health. It's taken all day to be able to sit upright, and even now, I have about a two-inch range of motion in my neck. It would appear that I am not immune to the bad luck that's been going around lately. Still, in the interest of full-disclosure, if you are reading this, and everything seems to be going fine in your life, you'd better watch your back...