Mirror, Mirror

I broke a mirror tonight. It was a medium hand held mirror that was leaning against my nightstand but had slid down onto the floor, face down right next to my bed. I stepped on it and heard a crunch. When I looked down I wasn’t happy. I’m actually not all that superstitious, but there are two things that do cause me to pause and shudder.

I don’t like crossing the path of a black cat or breaking mirrors. These two superstitions evolved for me after suffering some bad luck after doing both of the above. I don’t specifically remember what happened after the black cat incident as it was many years ago. I just remember that I credited whatever misfortune I suffered to the cat and wishing I’d just turned around or at least spit out of the window three times after crossing its path like one of my friend’s mom’s always used to do. Since then, I’ve been known to actually turn the car around if a black cat crosses in front of me. Did I actually admit that right here in black and white?

The mirror thing is also big for my husband. A few years ago I broke one while sitting in our tent on a camping trip and didn’t really think much of it until much later when my husband pointed out to me that we’d had a string of bad things happen the following year and he brought up the whole mirror breaking incident. I looked back and had to admit that we’d certainly had some bad luck after that happened. I won’t go into all of the details but will just say that the year following the mirror incident was a bad year. (My parents had a bad wreck, my grandfather passed away, our finances were extremely strained, big and expensive things around the house and cars were breaking, and life was throwing some other curve balls our way) Don’t misunderstand me, I’m very grateful that we’re all healthy and know things could always be worse, but I did find myself questioning what role, if any, the broken mirror played in the string of bad things that happened over the following year.

After I heard the crunch tonight I looked down and said, “Oh, no!” When I told my husband what I’d just done I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. Oh, great! Just what we need, another broken mirror.

I actually looked up a few things online tonight about breaking mirrors and superstitions but just wasn’t up for taking the pieces of shard glass outside to burn or burying them in the moonlight, nor did I react immediately as suggested by turning counter clockwise three times afterwards. I’m just going to hope for the best and that it’s not actually seven years for that first mirror and another seven for this one, because that would mean I now have about 11 more years of bad luck still left to go. So, wish me luck!