When it rains, it pours.

Sometimes things happen in groups. The old saying "bad things come in threes," comes to mind. We, perhaps, remember the bad things more readily than the good. Do good things also come in threes? or fours? or pairs?

Currently, it seems like I'm having one of those groupings with all sorts of "bills" coming due at once. Not actual bills (well, those, too, and having those contributes to the sense of lots happening at once), but occasional costs, all happening to hit at once. I had to replace my computer last week (it was 4.5 years old), and the software. And then my backpack died (it was about 9 years old). And then my glasses broke (3 years old). Then the annual auto registration is also due this month. And I was hoping to take a short vacation (which would cost extra $$ over my normal expenditures).

And I was thinking about how such basically random events sometimes all happen at once, and then we maybe feel like everything is falling apart, when it just happens that it was a random grouping of events, each of which was individually basically certain.

It's not a sign of things breaking down. It's just random chance serving up a double helping of difficulty.

Of course, when the sun shines, things are good: just as there are confluences of negative events that make for occasional difficult weeks, there are confluences of things working right that make for weeks that go by easily. We don't necessarily notice those weeks, though. I clearly remember places in Tolkein's work where he says "but stories of good times are quickly told," I suppose that's at work here: the stories of good times are more easily told. This reminds me of the value of having some practice of stating what you're grateful for or what is good in your life: if you want to remember the good, sometimes you have to work for it.