Why I believe this year is gonna be bad

Will this year be a good one for me? I don't know, but I have a feeling it won't. Yeah...not an optimistic start to the year. Why? This year I'll turn 24 and I'm kinda superstitious that this will be another bad luck year for me. Let me tell you why.

In the Chinese lunar calendar, there's a cycle of 12 years and every year is associated with a specific animal as a zodiac - this year is the dragon. Everyone is born with a zodiac depending on which year you were born. Every 12 years the cycle repeats itself and if it's the year of your zodiac bad luck will befall you. Why? I don't frickin' know. That's what my mom told me. Apparently, according to Google, it has to do with offending some Chinese god. Maybe the gods don't want you to be happy?

You may be wondering why I'm worried when it's just all superstition. Well, when I was 12 I was hit by a car while crossing the road on my way to middle school. I was injured and ended up in the hospital. Nothing too severe, but imagine a 12-year-old going through something like that. Luckily, I survived without any long-term injuries.

This happened almost 11 years ago on a cold January morning. I clicked on the crosswalk button and waited my turn. When I saw the pedestrian symbol on the other side I knew it was my time to cross and with just one step I felt something hit the left side of my hip, turned around and saw part of the hood, then down I went. The car came out of nowhere. What I believe happened was the driver wasn't paying attention to the pedestrian crosswalk and made a right turn. I think I tried raising myself up maybe a minute later and saw a few people across the street rushing to my aid. I couldn't get up since I was in pain, but that wasn't really my concern since I don't think I felt the pain besides being numb all over. All I remember was just basically asking for my mom.

I feel like what saved my life was my fat-ass backpack that cushioned my back when I fell to the ground. Pretty sure I fell backward which could've caused me to hit the back of my head against the hard concrete. None of my injuries were life-threatening thankfully and I was able to regain consciousness after the fall. The injuries I sustained were a bleeding chin, bleeding below my bottom lip inside my mouth, swollen foot, and overall soreness. No broken bones miraculously.

At the hospital, they fixed me up by gluing my chin (is "medical glue" a thing? 🤔) and a few stitches in my inner lip. They decided my foot didn't need a cast even though they had me walk around and I was struggling since my foot was swollen so much it was a nasty color. I did come back to the hospital to get a cast the next day since I had emailed my middle school teacher about missing school and she came to visit me and saw my condition. My teacher drove my mom and me to the hospital to tell them a cast was necessary for me. The cast and crutches were uncomfortable to say the least. Every time I went somewhere I felt like I was being left behind since it was hard to keep up. And trying to go to the bathroom with just one foot was also hard. I tried to independently use the bathroom and fell a few times trying to get to the bathroom. And don't get me started on the itchiness. Not fun.

What did happen as a result of the accident was I got a sum of money out of it once I turned 18. It wasn't that much since half went to medical expenses such as ER, ambulance ($1,500 for a ~3mi trip), chiropractor, and legal fees, but who can say they have money when turning 18? Also, I missed several months of school.

Surprisingly, the whole accident hasn't affected me mentally. I did have a moment the first time I was walking home from school after the accident. After 15-20 minutes of walking and getting close to the site where it happened, I got emotional and started crying. Out of nowhere, I saw my mom and grandpa walking towards me which made me feel better. I guess they were walking to the school to pick me up. Ever since I was little either my mom or grandpa would walk to my school to pick me up to maybe the 7th grade. They don't drive so we would just walk which was nice. I'm glad I saw them otherwise I would've walked home alone while crying. After that one moment, however, I never felt any emotion regarding the accident even after passing that area. I would even remind my mom that's where it happened every time we would pass the area. Several times my mom said she'd throw some rice there to clear the bad luck, but she never did.

Hopefully, nothing like that happens to me this year and that it'll be filled with wonderful moments. I need some of those considering the beginning of my 2023 really wasn't the best, but that's another story.