Voodoo Dolls and Curses

Josiesayz:

I think I might be cursed. This year, I turned thirty. I have never, ever celebrated my birthday. This year I wanted to. Two years ago, before the whole Covid thing, I told my partner at the time, that I wanted to go to Paris for my thirtieth birthday (I have never been abroad, apart from one school trip to Germany back in 2006) and they convinced me it was a good idea.

Well skip forward two years and that couldn’t happen for three reasons: 1) Covid, 2) I’m no longer with the person I was with back then and 3) my Godmother said she would have gone with me, but a few days before my birthday, she got diagnosed with cancer.

I still wanted to celebrate my birthday, so I booked the week off work and was going to go to Barmouth, for the week. At the last minute, all of the trains were cancelled, as there was a crack in the train line, so I never got to go.

My mental health has been a spiking roller coaster for the past two years – more so than the struggle I’ve gone through over the last six years. Without a single friend, I’ve really struggled. This week however, despite how hard work has been, I have actually felt the best, mentally, I have probably ever felt in my entire life. It may be down to a vitamin change, or maybe I’m finally over a bunch of traumatic things, either way, I really wanted to do something for me, for once.

Almost two months since my birthday, the past week and a half at work has been so stressful. I’ve been working so many extra hours unpaid, the workload has increased dramatically. There are so many changes and new managers and so many threats being put in place, the only thing that got me through this week was telling myself that I was going to Barmouth on Saturday, as a belated birthday present to myself. I was only going for the one day, but I was looking forward to it so much.

Just as I was about to go to bed, on Friday night, I took one final look at the train times, to discover that the trains for Saturday had been cancelled. I cried. I had been looking forward to this so much. I wanted this. I needed this more than anything. I’ve felt so lost and hurt. I really do think I must be cursed. Bad things just keep happening to me. It’s like someone out there doesn’t want me to be happy. In the last six years, my nan died, my parents split up, I’ve lost every single friends I have ever had, I have had so many jobs I have lost count, I have been bullied by a countless number of people, I’ve had a broken heart, nearly died of pneumonia, had my home life reduced to living in a box room, paying off thousands of pounds worth of utility bills that aren’t mine, and have been made to feel so worthless that I tried to take my own life. Every time I get close to having something nice, a friend, a partner, a holiday, a day trip… it all gets taken away from me. Somebody out there doesn’t want me to be happy.

I tried so hard to still put my day to good use. I tried using up lots of my felt supply and made an army of voodoo dolls. Despite my bad luck, I don’t want to use them for bad purposes. I want to help make everyone’s life happy and better, because I know what it’s like to feel completely worthless and I never want anyone to go through what I did.

- Josie -

Friday 13th – Lucky or Unlucky?

(Josie Sayz: So many stories surround Friday 13^th. Spooky goings on, hauntings, servere bad luck. Some people even go as far as to refuse to leave the house on Friday 13^th – but why? Could something bad not happen by staying indoors? Wouldn’t losing a day’s pay, not getting any fresh air and living in fear all day be considered bad luck, all because of some irrational fear?)

Friday the 13th is considered unlucky in some countries, but lucky in others. I find this concept very strange, having been brought up in a country where some people literally fear the number 13. I used to work in a restaurant and the number of customers who refused table number 13 (and would rather wait over half an hour for another table than sit there) was, to me, surprisingly high. Several people a day would refuse to sit at table 13, claiming that it was unlucky, or it would bring them bad luck. My mum works in a supermarket, as a cashier, and her checkout is number 13. When the store is busy, members of staff have often directed customers towards my mum (as she has won awards for her customer service), yet many customers refuse her service and would often prefer to wait in a long queue than use checkout number 13 in fear that it will bring them bad luck. In such a modern day and age, it surprises me so much that people believe in such silly superstitions.

From a young age, I was always led to believe that 13 was unlucky. I was never quite sure why (although I had a feeling that it had something to do with witchcraft or paganism). It wasn’t until I was at university when I first discovered that in some countries, they view Friday 13^th as lucky. I recall in my second year at university, my Enlightenment lecture fell on a Friday 13^th. Not many people turned up to our lecture and it puzzled my lecturer. Someone joked that we were light on people because it was Friday 13^th and some people were probably too scared to leave their house. My lecturer, who was French, seemed puzzled. She told us that where she grew up, everyone would go out and buy a lottery ticket on Friday 13^th because it was considered to be the luckiest day of the year and she had never heard of (and did not understand) why it was viewed so negatively in Britain – we couldn’t really explain it to her either. I guess it’s just a case of a silly idea being planted in your brain when you are young that can fester and spread into an irrational fear as one grows older. I believe the term for having a phobia over Friday 13^th is: paraskevidekatriaphobia.

Do I believe in Friday 13^th? No. I don’t believe in some random spirit forcing good or negative fortunes upon people. However, I do believe that people choose to play/feed upon the negative connotations connected to the date. I think on Friday 13^th people purposely look for, and take note of, all of the teeny, tiny instances that go wrong and blame it on the day; however, if today was Friday 12^th or 14^th they probably wouldn’t take much (if any) notice. For example, as I was leaving work today, I asked one of my colleagues if she had had a good day (in passing), to which she replied that she had not. She said that she hates Friday the 13^th and so many bad things had happened to her today and that she was going straight home, to bed, and couldn’t wait for it to be tomorrow. Had today’s date been any other date than the 13^th though, I reckon that my colleague would not have been so dramatic, and her day would not have felt as bad. She woke up expecting today to be negative, so she old looked for and took note of all of the negative activity that occurred today.

I feel as though I had a very good day today. I woke up having had the most amazing dream, involving the most special friend that I have even had, even though we currently not talking – I viewed this dream as a pleasant, hopeful, bright light at the end of a dark tunnel. My pet rabbit didn’t wake me up before my alarm went off for the first time in months. At work, I got all of my assignments/projects completed by the end of the day. I saw lots of magpies on the way to work – which is considered good luck in the world of superstition (one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told). I managed to use one of the complicated machines at work, without help, for the first time. I drank more water than normal, which is a big thing for me. I got some good deals at the supermarket, on my way home. I didn’t get wet even though rain was forecast for today. My head feels happy and clear (following from my lovely dream, I have been having happy and positive thoughts about this special friend all day). The more I think about my day, yes, a few bad things did happen – I forgot my ice cube tray so with the temperature being rather hot at the moment, my water was warm, and I hate drinking warm water. The pasta that I had for lunch had gone off. A couple of things during my time a work occurred, preventing me from getting things finished sooner. My rabbit’s dinner had gone soggy in the fridge and he refused to eat it, so I had to go back out and buy him something else and I was running late this morning and forgot to wear my waterproofs shoes (despite seeing the weather forecast predict rain). Yes, a list of negative things happened during my day, but up until I forced myself to think of them just now, I never would have considered today to have been an unlucky day. I think that it just depends on what mind set you follow through the day with. If you begin your day with a negative frame of mind, of course you are going to remember every single negative thing in much detail. Yes, one big, bad thing could happen, but it could also have occurred yesterday, and you wouldn’t go around blaming it on Thursday 12^th now, would you?

I hope that you had a good day, whether you believe in Friday the 13^th or not.

- Josie -