The "rules of three"

This past weekend was the annual guys four-wheeling trip  up the North Shore at my brothers cabin. I went too. Sometimes you just know that you need to get away and spend time with certain people. That was the case here. For four days we all went off the grid. In the area of this cabin, cell phones don't work. There is no electricity. Time becomes what you make it. You get to choose. It was a weekend of regeneration, at least for me. I returned home with the rarest of feelings...hope. We unloaded all our stuff and spent some time reviewing phone calls that left messages, catching up on e-mail and going through our regular mail. We were a bit giddy, three things we discovered had gone right. We received word that a parcel of property we had for sale....sold. We got a message that a piece of equipment we were selling, sold. Marty discovered he won third quarter of the football game. It was a good end to a good weekend.

Then there is this: On Monday I discovered my credit card had been hacked to the tune of $1500.
Ever since I can remember I have lived my life by the "rule of threes". I can't tell you when this started but I can remember even as a very small child truly believing that I could control life with a repetition of three. As an adult I understand this to be a form of Obsessive/Compulsive behavior but for the better part of life as I knew it, it was just the way I made order of a world that often seemed outside my control. I know many people believe that bad things come in threes, this isn't that. I don't now and never have believed that to be true. Bad things come with no predictability and no statute of limitations.  Ask anyone who's on a roll and they will tell you bad things in threes would be a gift.
The "rules of three" works like this. If I think something three times, it will go the way I want. Either it won't happen or it will, dependent upon my desire. Most random daily events from locking the door, to checking the stove, the coffee pot etc., all done in threes. It isn't so much the physical acts of the day where this comes into play but it is without a doubt how I mentally review everything. It took me 54 years to get up the courage to talk to my Dr. about the way I feel. Although she gave me relevant information about possible medication, behavior therapy and/or counseling it was more what she told me she felt to be true. She said many people have many behaviors that help them cope in an ever-changing and often frightening world. She asked if I felt it interfered with my life? I answered honestly that I don't remember a life without it. So no, it doesn't interfere with my life. I can remember only two years where this behavior completely left me. When Mike died in late 2006 through 2009 when I didn't believe I could control anything and if I could control it ,well I didn't care.
I lay this out there to set the groundwork for what I want you to understand. The idea that my credit card could have been hacked is completely outside the "rules of three". I am and might be the most anal credit card person in the world. Pre-pay gas....nope. Give my card to a waiter?....nope. On-line shop.....minimal and only with the top 3 companies. Leave my purse laying around, start a tab at a bar, pay with my card and ignore the receipt? Nope, nope and nope. This was a card I had for two years and used roughly 7 times. The theft was not by electronic means, they tell me the card was physically swiped at four locations. That's the card that is in my purse and never left my purse. I am told they now make cards once they have acquired your number. They make the cards in seconds. How they aquired my number, is beyond my comprehension.

This is what I know: If they wanted to steal my identity. They are too late. Six years, nine months and twenty-three days ago, God beat them to it. What may have taken these thieves, maybe seconds, possibly minutes, probably days or weeks to do, God managed with the cessation of one heart, in one breath. Our identity has nothing to do with our material selves and everything to do with who we know ourselves to be.

In 2011 when I returned home to find our house had been burglarized(yet again proof that the "rules of three" don't work), my brother Steve said something I won't ever forget. He said, "they didn't take anything from you that matters." Last night I was out of town, in the late hours of the night when I was feeling so low, I called Marty. He told me this..."if we lost everything material we would be ok. We would still have our family, we'll always have Mike and we'd still have each other." Wise words from two men that I count on to keep me in the game.
If whoever did this wants my identity in it's current state, they are welcome to it. Crawl inside my head and take it. Take the fear I carry constantly. Fear so debilitating that some days I need medication to simply breathe. Fear that can follow you into your dreams. Take the anger and the bitterness that I work so hard to tamp down, that requires daily vigilance so it doesn't over-take me. Take the social awkwardness I now feel where I can last in social situations about half as long as I need to. Take the pain that comes from living my entire life convinced everything and everyone would be ok if I just kept up with the "rules of three" only to discover the power was never mine. That is my identity.

People that do this kind of thing couldn't handle it. They are not made for courage.
I would tell them this: Lay down your best game and I will lay down mine. You are not going to win. In six years, nine months and twenty-three days I have learned a little something about surviving.

till next time.

When your long day is over

and you can barely drag your feet

when the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

I know what you need

Bring it on home to me.

LBT