Dear Friends,
If you find a lucky penny heads-up on the floor of your own room..is it still lucky? Or because it fell out of your purse or pocket, does it mean that you took part in helping the universe to “stage” a lucky penny. Is this a phony lucky penny, or really worth something? Currency is kind of like friends. They come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors, and some of them hold more value than others. Some of them do better vacations, meaning they’re worth more in exchange. I’d rather have a five-dollar bill than a dime, wouldn’t you? And why are pennies so lucky? That means that somewhere out there, some person in like 1832 deduced that something worth one cent was somehow valuable. Did this person possibly feel bad for the penny? Or for Lincoln? Or did he just simply need to bring meaning to the idea of being poor because he only had just a few pennies in his own pocket. I feel as though I’ve recently dismembered some pennies from my pocket, and my life recently. And I feel bad about it – yet I don’t know why.
It’s almost like friends are trick coins, like the ones magicians carry. The thing that looks like a quarter, but is really a dime when you take the casing off? That’s what I’m talking about. I thought I had some quarter friends, and one particular twenty-dollar bill friend. That’s a lot if you’re a struggling writer like me. This twenty dollar bill friend fell on the floor somehow in the past two weeks, and quickly went to a ten dollar bill, to a five, and now he is a penny to me. I never understood inflation until now. I am going through emotional deflation. I feel as if I’m trapped in Disneyland, waiting for the gypsy woman on Main Street to tell me my fortune, and she simply gave me my penny back. The machine was out of order. She’s all out of fortunes. Is that considered lucky? Sometimes you even expect something out of the penny – you need the penny to deliver, even though it’s only worth a cent. And just as this machine might be out of order and give you your unwanted, useless penny back, I have felt the same kind of deceit from a friend that once meant twenty bucks to me.
I fear that I have trusted someone for several years who has not earned it, or deserved it. I fear that this person now amounts to nothing in my life and never did. We just shared something. We shared the same sense of loss. That is why my upbringing is so amazing because my mom gave me a gift that I carry with me, and her death provided me strength. For this penny-friend, he lost it all. He has no strength. He has no love. Just only contempt for other peoples’ happiness, and the ability and power to shut it up.
I’m looking at this lucky penny in my room as a sign. I’m hoping it is. I’m hoping the universe is either telling me that my friend is now worth one cent or less to me, or that maybe there is something in store for me that is better than his love and respect I thought I had. The only person who will always love and respect you IS you. And the only thing that can truly bring you good luck is a face-up penny. Unfortunately, for my friend and me…I found him face-down.
Kisses,
Jessica
