Happy New Year!

Welcome 2021! At long last, 2020 is over.

Unfortunately, as years tend to do, this one so far looks like last year. It's raining, it's cold, and there is still a bad virus out in the world.

But now we move on. Beginning years of decades seem to not be the best ones. Maybe soon this will be the Roaring '20s of the 2000s. I hope so.

There are many rituals about the first of the year. The ones I am aware of have to do with what you eat and opening doors. I have never subscribed to any of them, so while I tried black-eyed peas one year, they were not on the menu today.

I did get up and open a door and shoo out the old year and then waved in the new. I didn't think it could hurt anything and fresh air is always nice.

Another superstition, maybe it's a local one, I don't know, is that good luck comes depending upon who enters the house first as a visitor - a man brings good luck, a woman brings bad luck. (Sexist much?)

This superstition has haunted me a long time. When I was seven, we went to my grandmother's house on New Year's Day. I was so excited to see my grandmother that I bounded into the house.

My grandmother immediately burst into tears. "She came in first. We'll have bad luck all year long," she wailed.

My grandfather, who had watched my father enter second, suggested that only held true for adult visitors and children didn't count, so my father was bringing good luck.

My grandmother was having none of it. I had ruined the entire year. I still remember her clutching at her chest and the tears in her eyes.

I was walking bad luck.

As one might imagine, this had quite an impact upon me at that particular age. I spent the entire year ducking anytime something bad happened, sure I would be blamed. My young uncles would tease me if something happened - a glass broke, I remember, - and remind me it was all my fault. 

I was bad luck.

This kind of thing can dampen the spirits of even the most resilient child. I, however, have always been prone to melancholy and moodiness. 

That year I was about as melancholy and moody as a little girl of seven could be. I had moved to a new school that year. I told my classmates to stay away from me - I was bad luck. I shied away from making friends.

I told my teacher I was bad luck. After about the third time of hearing this, Mrs. Wright sat me down and told me there was no such thing as good or bad luck. She asked me where I'd gotten the notion that I was bad luck.

"My grandmother said I was bad luck because I'd walked in the door first on New Year's," I explained.

I remember seeing Mrs. Wright inhale deeply and look off in the distance. Then she looked back at me.

"Now see here. There is no such thing as bad luck or good luck. That's all superstitious nonsense and you should not believe any of it," she said.

"But my grandmother dropped a glass," I said. "She said it was my fault."

"Everybody breaks things. In life, things happen. We have to accept that. But they do not happen because someone walked into a room. Sometimes things simply happen, and all we can do is accept them," she said.

This advice lightened my heart, but only a little. (To this day, I do not leave my house on New Year's Day. Nor do I go into anyone's house first, if I can help it.)

However, on this New Year's Day, I think back on Mrs. Wright's advice and realize that she was right. I also realize that this lesson - that sometimes things simply happen and we must accept that - is one lost on the majority of the population right now.

The virus happened. The election happened. People have car wrecks, lose their jobs, lose their families, and sometimes - maybe most of the time - it's through not fault of their own. Nor is it bad luck. Sometimes it is the result of a choice made a decade ago, one that a person may not remember ever having made. 

Sometimes things happen.

Occasionally, we break a glass.