Enough Already…

I don’t mean to kvetch – REALLY I don’t! I generally believe the universe is benign, that bad luck is just bad luck, that bad things happen to everyone – not just good people, and that no one is out to get me.

And yet…

I’ve really had enough. A metastatic diagnosis, my husband’s stroke, third-line therapy, some trauma my son suffered. To borrow from the Passover liturgy – dayenu – it would have been enough! And yet today my home was broken into. The worst of it – my housekeeper was here. She was told to lie on the floor of the kitchen, and thank God she was not physically harmed in any way. The dogs are fine. The rest is “stuff.” Some very sentimental stuff – like my husband’s grandmother’s ring – my “something old” when I got married, some pieces that were left to me by my mother-in-law, and the only piece of my own mother’s jewelry that I wanted – a Star of David purchased on our first trip to Israel 35 years ago. I am deeply sad, and can’t believe I will never hold those things again – but they are things.

I do not yet have that sense of being violated, my space being invaded, unsafe in my own home. I may, I may not. Zach is feeling some of that, despite knowing that the front door – which was kicked in by the thieves – is reinforced more strongly that it was before. They were in his room, his oasis, his safe place. I get it.

So it sucks, and we will eventually get a list of most of what was lost and we will take care of business, as we must.

But here’s the thing – it occurs to me that “Enough already…” only ever applies to the shitty things in life. I’ve yet to hear anyone say “I’ve had enough good in my life, it’s someone else’s turn; that life has been too good or too sweet or more than they deserved. When did it happen that we became entitled to “easy street”? No one promised it would be easy.

My housekeeper is safe. My dogs are okay. I wasn’t ever promised even that. People talk about how dangerous the world has become. And to wit, it can be dangerous out there. Then again, we don’t generally fear for lions and tigers and bears. The dangers today are different. We – people – have, perhaps, become the dangerous animal of once-upon-a-time.

It’s enough already. Really, it is. But I don’t get a bye any more more than anyone else, and perhaps, like the flip of a coin, the odds are the same each and every time. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times in a row I get tails, the next toss is still 50/50.