“Lucky Dog”, “Luck of the draw”, “Lucky charms”, and “year of the golden rabbit” all celebrate luck. According to Chinese tradition, the year 2011 is the year of the golden rabbit, and brings a year in which you can catch your breath and calm your nerves.
The word “Luck” is defined as the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person’s life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities. I remember visiting a cavern once with my family and was told if a drop of water from the stalactite dropped in your eye it meant good luck for several years. Everyone tried to have that happen to them, to no avail. Then right as we were departing, sure enough, a huge drop of water from a stalactite plopped into my eye! Startled me. The guide said he’d never actually seen it happen before….Such is my luck.
My kids would say I am lucky. If there is a drawing at an event, I usually win it. Never won a car, but have taken home my fair share of cookbooks and lotions. I’ve always felt that I was lucky…
…until my divorce after 26 years of marriage.
People in transition are my specialty in the field of interior design. I qualify as one of those people. Consolidating my interior purchases down to half was a challenge. Making those things look wonderful in my new space was at first daunting.
Pictures I’d always had over a certain chest with that really cool lamp, were now just the picture and the lamp, no chest. A rug from one room, sofa from another, tables from somewhere else were all deposited together as a lump sum in my new home. I wasn’t feeling quite so lucky.
Truly believing that luck takes a little hard work, I set to work at restoring balance in my own life. The draperies I had in the bedroom were translated into panels in the foyer. The sheer linen fabric underneath panels in the great room now served as the main fabric in my kitchen. The original panels stayed in my previous home. Hardware from one room was cut down and new finials added. Furniture found its place, a few new pieces were ordered.
“Hmm…that actually looks pretty good like that,” I murmured to myself. “I think I can live here….”
I slowly worked on transitioning my pieces into my new home. As I’ve added a few accessories, and fine tuned some placement of furniture I found I felt my luck was returning. I got a better handle on my new life, and my new home. To me, luck is the work that goes into life as we take the opportunities to transition into the next phase. Nothing just happens, and I found as I worked hard on creating my new life, in time….”luck” reappeared.
This is not to mitigate the fact that my faith also pulled me through this time. I couldn’t have made it through without God preparing a way. A good friend told me, Do you think it is like God is up above, looking down on us and saying, “Hey, what just happened to Cheryl while I wasn’t looking?”. Of course not, and I was “lucky” to have my friend remind me of that.
So it was that because of a personal transition I became the design expert at people in transition. I help them with their space as they renegotiate how they will live. A birth in the family, a divorce or re-marriage, a death…all bring about a time to transition. I’m curious…what was the biggest transition you’ve been through recently?