Do you consider yourself lucky?

I really object when people tell me how lucky I am, lucky to live in the sun, lucky to be able not to have to work, lucky to have met my husband, lucky to be able to send my son to boarding school, lucky to go on holiday, lucky, lucky, lucky.

I don’t believe in that kind of luck. To me luck is being dealt the right cards in a poker game, luck is being the 100^th customer in a store and winning your shopping, luck is being handed the keys to a brand new car because you happen to remind someone of their dear departed mother.

Luck did not enter my mind when my husband or I completed our degrees, luck did not get my husband a job that moved us to South Africa, luck did not come into the picture when we decided to send our son back to boarding school in the UK because his dyslexia could not be supported in South Africa, luck did not make my husband fall in love with me or me with him, luck does not enter the equation when we plan and book our holidays.

I’m not lucky not having to work, I live in a country where I’m not permitted to work and telling me the sun must help when I feel depressed certainly doesn’t make me feel lucky, it makes me feel sad that you think that I don’t have the right to be depressed as I’m lucky having everything. But I don’t have everything, I don’t have luck, I have a daily struggle to keep it together, a daily struggle to see a future, a daily battle with depression and if you’re interested the sun doesn't help, it makes me feel lethargic, not lucky.