A Little Stitious
On parallels, superstitions, cherophobia, and Catholic guilt
A lot of exciting writing stuff has happened with me recently, but I haven’t talked about it on here. I thought about it, but I tend to get a little suspicious about overpromoting things. The last time a lot of exciting writing things were happening in my life I promoted them1 like crazy, partly out of pride, partly because I was afraid no one would attend any of the events, which as it turned out happened to be true. All of this happened in 2020, many of these events were slated for March and so were understandably cancelled as people isolated and adjusted to living their lives on Zoom.
Fast-forward to 2024, and I start noticing some similarities. Coincidences, obviously, but enough of them to make me nervous. Some of the more spiritually inclined on TikTok noticed weird parallels in their own lives and believed that it was a sign of the world righting itself after the pandemic, and maybe the eclipse is helping.2 I just think it’s weird, and the logical part of my brain tells me it’s all just a coincidence, that life is full of them. But the nervous part of me is on edge.
So here are some of the similarities, let’s start with what was going to/did happen in 2020:
I was supposed to have a play performed in the HamilTEN Festival
My short story “What Happened To Natalie?” was an honourable mention for gritLit’s writing contest
I was supposed to read an excerpt of my story for Lit Live and gritLit
It was a Leap Year
And here are things that have happened in 2024:
I had a play performed in Neruda Art’s She Creates - She Speaks Festival
My short story “Peach Baby” won gritLit’s writing contest
I read an excerpt of the story for gritLit on Zoom
It was a Leap Year
The parallels are weird, I don’t think there’s any denying that, but I also know they don’t mean anything3. I don’t think it’s the world righting itself after trauma because there’s still a lot of trauma and bad things currently going on in the world, even if it isn’t directly affecting us.
I’m a cautious person. Without going into detail, there have been some bad things that have happened and as a result I’ve tried to find ways to stop them from happening. I’ve tried to control them. This was easy when I was younger and still a practicing Catholic. I spent most of my nights praying,4 believing that I would be heard and everything would be okay. That my sister and mom would get better, that the stress would go away, that we’d be fine financially. My praying would get obsessive, a never-ending strand of mental begging that things would get better, that things had to get better, that I would be a better person if only He could make things better now, please. So many sleepless nights with my hands clutched around a rosary or my pendants under my pillow, praying, praying, praying that someday things would be alright.
I think religion breeds superstition, since so many of them focus on the belief that doing one thing affects another part of your life5 without any proof that it actually does. But it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking it works, especially when the good starts happening again. If you are good you will go to Heaven, here are a list of virtues. If you are bad you will go to Hell, here are a list of sins. Anxiety doesn’t help with this, if anything it adds to the obsession of trying to be good, trying everything possible to be good because if a bad thing happens then you aren’t good, are you? Sure, bad things happen to good people but God also doesn’t give us more than we can handle, so if you can’t handle it you can’t be good. If you were good these things would stop, here’s a list of repressive ways that you can be good.6 So while I tried to appease a God who didn’t listen by praying, I also tried to keep the day good in my own ways. Rosary and pendants under my pillow, wearing either my clover or horseshoe necklace on a test or exam day for luck, waiting for a song to come on the radio because it meant the day would be good.
So yeah, you could call me a little stitious. Maybe even superstitious.7 I dislike the number thirteen8 and if I end on a page or chapter thirteen in a book I have to keep reading to feel better. I toss salt over my left shoulder when it’s spilled, I keep my umbrella closed indoors. I knock on wood, I am careful around mirrors, I avoid stepping on cracks even though I doubt they’ll affect my mom’s celestial back. I like even numbers, I think they feel safer than odd numbers but don’t mind three because everything comes in threes.9 Even though I know it’s pointless, I try to prevent bad things from happening. Sometimes I think I have cherophobia.10 I recently bought a book from a used bookstore called The Encyclopedia of Superstitions and while I know it will be interesting I also know that reading this book will most likely trigger some new obsessive behaviour on my end, because despite the logic I still try to prevent the bad things from happening. I like to believe that I can stop them, control the outcome, somehow. I still think these small actions might be enough to keep me safe.
But the truth is there isn’t really anything that can stop it. I was speaking to some friends a few weeks back and we discussed just that, of things going too well in life, of being lulled into the safety of that feeling only for something bad to happen that sends everything off-kilter.
Something bad will always happen. This isn’t negative or depressing, it’s just life. We cycle through the good and bad moments, it’s just that the bad moments hurt more, weigh us down, are heavier to hold onto than the good moments are. It’s also true that some people deal with more bad than others and I don’t know why that is, I don’t have an answer. At one point I might have thought that God had favourites, if I believed in the videogame simulation theory I might think some people have better stats than others but really I just think that life is random.11
I spoke to a grief counsellor a few years after my mom died because after some family health scares I realized I needed help. I told my counsellor that I was afraid of bad things happening, that I didn’t know how to not sink inside of myself when they did. I wanted her to tell me that no more bad things would happen in my life, that I just had to be positive and things would be good. Even though I no longer go to church and know the harms of toxic positivity, I still hope that life could be as simple as I once thought it was, that if I was good then good things would come, that after I had carried my cross things would be lighter. But my counsellor was correct, and honest when she confirmed that yes, bad things would happen. Bad things will always happen, but it doesn’t mean that good things won’t either. It means accepting the bad with the good, feeling the bad with the good, and going on anyways.
All of which is meant to be comforting, I guess, but isn’t really. It’s hard to accept that the bad will always come when you’ve been raised to believe you can avoid it, that there are ways to prevent it and not being able to do so means you aren’t good enough. It just means I have more work to do, like accepting the bad that will come without dreading it, and trying to hold onto the good for as long as I can.
I wish these things were easier.
(Picture for the cover photo is “Lucky You” be Jessica Roux.)
What Else I’ve Been Doing:
Reading: Finished Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key, Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein, The Book of Seances by Claire Goodchild, Little Fish by Casey Plett, Extra Salty: Jennifer’s Body by Frederick Bilchert. Currently reading I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle.
Listening To: CHAPPELL ROAN!!!
Watching: Season Two of Six Feet Under, Season Two of What We Do In the Shadows, One Pace (Arlong Park).
To the annoyance of the friends, family, and strangers who follow me online I’m sure.
But also possibly making it worse? Maybe they looked straight at it without the special glasses.
Probably…
Pleading
And afterlife
I love my Catholic guilt!
To the surprise of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE.
Take a guess at how many Substack followers I have 🙃
My exception is black cats, because I think all cats are lucky regardless of appearance.
Sometimes I’m CONFIDENT I have cherophobia.
And mostly unfair.