Member-only story
We nicknamed her Breakthrough because that’s what she’d excitedly claim at every meeting:
I had a breakthrough!
And, she always did, despite being 72 and the oldest member of our prosperity class, she had breakthroughs regularly.
Yes, a prosperity class. It was 2008, two years after the book The Secret hit bookstores, and three years after I discovered The Law of Attraction.
After years of suffering from depression, I left my husband and started a new life. Exciting, yes. Easy, no. There was never enough money. The end of the month saw my bank account balance too low to buy a Starbucks coffee. My car had some rare deformity causing it to lose oil like a gunshot wound causes a body to lose blood. Estimate to repair: $800 — a lot more than the Starbucks coffee I couldn’t afford.
My previous family — the one I married into — considered me the devil incarnate for daring to save myself from a marriage that was certain to lead to my suicide. I was a complete outcast to the people I loved more than my own kin.
Friends I believed would always be by my side disappeared when I met and fell in love with Ben. Jealous? Maybe. Most were in unhappy marriages.
