Stuck

Yesterday and today I've been thinking into the long-ago past, revisiting some unpleasant memories about me having to pay back a loan during some rough times. It wasn't my idea to take the loan out in the first place; it was at my then-husband's insistence. We divorced, and I got stuck with 100 percent of the payments for almost three years because he wasn't able or willing to pay his half. I paid the $142 faithfully every month, and made the last and final payment due when I finished graduate school. The loan originally went mostly to buy a new computer, which I never saw or got to use. I tried (and try) not to dwell on the tragedy of the totality of it all, about how all of our individual monetary choices started and ended exactly the same way, but now it comes back to haunt me in the future, when various current events force me to revisit the past. I generally think of myself as someone who hasn't had very many bad things happen to her. Last week a co-worker told me that I seem to have a lot of bad luck, and she thinks it's because I'm such a nice, pleasant, and positive person, and that the universe has to temper that by having me run into bad luck. I found that observation to be rather preposterous, but at least it contained a few compliments. I just try to think of each negative event in my life as a learning experience, but it's difficult to keep that focus when the past keeps coming back around. Sometimes it helps to remind myself that things are so much better now than they used to be.