I have been doing tarot now for a few years but I really only started doing readings consistently within the last few months. I get bored working overnights a lot and when there’s nothing to do I pull out a deck and start asking questions. I’m not sure to what degree I actually buy into tarot but there have been times when the cards I get are eerily accurate. Tonight I did a reading for myself that I don’t want to forget. And since I tend to write a lot of the important things in my life here this is where it is going.

Before I get into the reading, let’s talk about this afternoon. I went to a psychic this afternoon for a reiki session. When I got there she said she didn’t believe I needed reiki. She wanted to read my energy and give me a tarot reading and see what it was I really needed. I said, “Let’s go,” and we dove in.

I met her at a Pride festival I recently attended. She was doing tarot readings and I love getting readings from strangers because it’s always interesting to see what they pick up on. Even though I am a practitioner and lover of tarot, I’m also a skeptic and approach all spiritual hippy shit with a wary eye and a grain of salt. I believe there is something out there in the ether but I don’t know what it is.

She picked up on a lot in our first meeting. Some stuff I was surprised she was able to see. But what do I know? She could have just been reading my body language. I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed by life for a while now and she saw that right away. In addition to doing tarot, she does reiki which is a spiritual practice that involves energy cleansing. I had a reiki session when I was in New Orleans and it was profound. It really feels like a massage for your soul. I left feeling like a different person. So, obviously when I saw that she did reiki, I wanted to make an appointment to see her.

We never did reiki while I was there. She did a lot of spiritual shit and a few tarot readings and gave me some advice. She also heavily marketed a healing package she thinks I should do. It’s $475. If I suddenly get rich, maybe I will. LOL.

Her advice wasn’t astounding or earth shattering but I needed it. She basically said I need to take some time away from other people and focus on myself and my healing. She’s not wrong.

I have been lonely for a long, long time. And I hate that feeling probably more than anything. But I think it’s probably time I got comfortable with being lonely. She told me that I won’t always be alone. She said she saw a soulmate for me out there, someone I haven’t met yet. Isn’t that what they all say? I’ll make a note of that with the most amount of side eye. No way do I trust that my soulmate is out there looking for me. LOL.

I’ve thought about what she said and the advice she gave and decided I need to take some time alone to heal. I think it’s something I desperately need. Of course, I’ll still be around and see my friends on occasion. I’m not joining a monastery. But I think I’ll definitely spend less time on social media and more time on me.

Back to the tarot reading I don’t want to forget.

Since she told me to take some “me time”, I decided to ask tarot what the rest of the summer would look like and I drew some very interesting cards.

We started off strong with the tower. That’s about change. Three of cups is about friendship. The 7 of wands is about getting my spark back. Those were my first 3 draws. A good start. There’s gonna be some upheaval in my life this summer but I’m going to get my spark back and I like that. Next we got the hermit, death, and the 7 of swords. Oof. The hermit is just more confirmation that it’s time to isolate a bit. Death is endings and new beginnings. And the 7 of swords is secrets.

I got the moon, so I need to do some soul searching. But I also got the high priestess so I need to learn to trust my intuition. I got the sun and strength. That’s the good shit. But I also got the devil. So I have to deal with some internal shit too.

The fool means I’m starting a journey. The 2 of swords means I’m having some trouble accepting some truths. The 5 of cups and 5 of pentacles mean I’m looking back on stuff I’ve lost and I feel shitty about it. No doy. King of wands and King of swords mean I’m gonna get some mastery over my feelings and thoughts this summer. Damn, I hope so.

The ace of wands means I’m on a new emotional journey, ready to put some fire back in my soul. The 4 of pentacles bodes well for my finances this summer. Fingers crossed.

And, finally, my favorite card in all of tarot, the 2 of cups. This card is about love. Idk if it means I’ll find love this summer. I highly doubt that. But maybe it means I’ll finally learn to love myself. That’s really the best outcome, isn’t it?

All in all, I can say it was a pretty great reading. I have some stuff to work on but if I spend the time working on myself I should see some great results, like the sun, strength, and love. I’ll get my spark back and maybe learn to love myself.

Of course, all of this is stuff I could have come up with on my own. Or something a traditional therpist would tell me. But who needs therapy when I have a deck of cards with pretty pictures on them?

Anyway, I’m off to go be a hermit now and I try to find that spark. Take care of yourselves.

I had an important thought a few days ago that I’ve been hanging onto and I don’t want to forget it. I would love to write this long winded post outlining my thought process like I normally do but the last several days of my life have taken a toll. So I’m going to be as brief as it’s possible for me to be. Which probably won’t be that brief.

I’ve been through a lot of change since August 7, 2021 and the further I get from that date the easier it is to see a difference between the “old” me and the me I’m becoming. Healing isn’t linear and so even though most of the time I’m moving forward, sometimes I move backward. As I strive to move forward, there are times when something brings up a memory from the past and I feel totally overwhelmed. A lot of times I look back and wonder why I did something, believed something, allowed something in my life. I look at the old me and use my 20/20 hindsight to see through the bullshit. It’s so easy to judge my past self from the safety of the future.

Right now I’m going through the process of trying to downsize my possessions. Seems like I’ve been doing that on wash, rinse, repeat since my ex and I split. Let me tell you, nothing brings up old painful memories like a bunch of stupid tchotchkes and knick-knacks. I’m a sentimental idiot so it’s easy to do.

One day, after having a mental health crisis over some candle holders, I sat down and had a little talk with myself. I didn’t really want the candle holders and I also didn’t want to get rid of them. I honestly couldn’t remember why I liked them so much in the first place. But they were one of the first things I bought to decorate my home with after I was married. It seems like so much of the time when these memories surface, I’m just trying to understand the old me, her motivations, etc. I feel like I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time examining her choices and behaviors for so long now. I’m either chastising or defending the old me or both at the same time. It’s exhausting.

I very much recognize that I’m not the same person I was. Nothing makes that more evident than having conversations with people who knew the old me well but haven’t gotten to know the new me. The truth is that the new me doesn’t totally understand the old me but she’s striving to protect her and defend her. I don’t completely understand some of the choices I made. I mean I *do* but I don’t. Because the current version of me wouldn’t make those same choices. I probably owe that to the old me. I’ve learned a lot from her mistakes.

The biggest thing I’ve come to realize, is if I keep dwelling on the past I can’t grow. I can’t be me if I’m still trying to protect her. That’s it. That’s my big realization. I like the new me; I like who I’m becoming. But if I’m spending my time defending and protecting a version of me that doesn’t exist anymore, I can’t grow.

It’s time to leave my behind in the past, as Pumbaa would say. Or something clever and witty and goofy. Idk.

I want to become who I’m becoming. (Profound, I know.) So I gotta let the old girl go. I love her. I feel so badly for her. She went through a lot of shit that she didn’t deserve. But she’s not here anymore. I am.

I wish I could unzip an invisible zipper in the air that would open onto a pocket dimension just for me. I would take her there along with all the stupid tchotchkes I don’t want and build her a nice little retirement home to spend the rest of her days. But, alas, I cannot. I’ll do it in my mind though. I’ll take her there and safely zip her away so she is protected and can’t be hurt anymore. Because I need to live my life now and I can’t be me if I’m still trying to protect her.

Once, when I was trying to fall asleep, my ex asked me, “Do you think people think you’re a good person or a bad person?” And I replied, “I don’t think people think about me.” He thought that was sad. I felt that it was factual.

Why do we spend so much time wondering what people think of us? The truth is people aren’t thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are. They’re not watching you workout at the gym; they’re watching themselves in the mirror. They’re not watching what you put in your cart at the grocery store or what you ordered at the restaurant; they’re worried someone else is looking at what’s in their cart or on their plate.

We spend our formative years in a microcosm of psychopathy known as public school, where beasts without fully functioning brains outnumber their teachers in a national average of 15 to 1. These merciless brutes DO, in fact, spend way too much time watching other people and making sure those outside their sphere know they are NOT acceptable. We call this bullying and we don’t take it nearly as seriously as we should. This 12 year scenario sets us up to worry about what other people are thinking of us. We want all the Regina George’s of the world to either like us or have no idea we exist.

Some of us are also lucky enough to be blessed with childhood trauma that leaves us teetering on the brink. Judgmental family members help strengthen the connections between neurons firing to tell us everyone is looking at us and laughing/judging/thinking ill. Every move we made was criticized and so we view ourselves through that critical lens. We have to hide our giant, glaring flaws that flash like neon signs above our heads so no one will know we are human and criticize our humanity.

Isn’t the society we’ve built for ourselves fun? We’ve done a stellar job of creating an environment that prioritizes health.

So yeah, I get it. You think everyone is watching you. You think people are thinking about you in their off time. I promise, they’re not. They’re thinking about themselves.

Of course, I’m probably wildly off about this. Because I think about people all the time. But I just can’t imagine a world where anyone is thinking about me in their off time. How boring. Think about something more interesting, weirdo.

In this essay I will… oh shit… never mind.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay homage to the bees in my brain. Today is a bee day. The bees are a-buzzin’ and so I am a-writin’.

The spring semester is nearly over. I have one week left and I am in the thick of writing final essays and preparing major speaking assignments. But today, in the midst of my push to finish the semester strong, it hit me that this summer will be the first extended break I’ve allowed myself to take since my ex left me over a year and a half ago. It’s been a little over 1 year and 8 months and in that time I have rarely let myself be still. Stillness means thinking and feeling and those are my enemies. That’s not to say I haven’t done some deep thinking and some major feeling in that time. But if I’m being honest, I hate them. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to feel. Thinking and feeling will only lead to questions and tears. And I don’t have answers or tissues.

When your heart is as stupidly big as mine, it isn’t easy to recover from it breaking. And my heart has been broken so many, many times in the last 20 months. Not just from my ex. There were the multiple times I had to throw away a piece of our history because he didn’t want it and I didn’t have a place for it. There was the situationship I found myself in that ended by me being ghosted. There are the friends who are no longer my friends and the family that I’ll never see again. There was the realization that throwing me away is the easiest thing in the world for someone to do. My skin is not thick and my heart is exposed because I wear it on my sleeve. I am a soft, loving, sweetie and I will love you hard and big and often and loud. I am a complete idiot.

Thinking and feeling,…. Let’s get back to that. You see, those two dumbasses are my enemies because if I think and feel for too long I will have to acknowledge my biggest fear and face it. I am so afraid no one will ever love me again and I will always be alone. Eesh. Arrow to the soul with that one. I am bleeding out on the barroom floor. The waitress is stepping over my corpse. My well-dressed and sexy corpse.

The terror that I am completely unlovable haunts me and I do my level best to avoid that ghoul with my whole being. I look at myself and I see all of the reasons not to love me. I won’t list them for you because that is too bleak and vulnerable, even for me. But here I am, facing that spectre again because in one week I will have a lot of time on my hands to overthink and overfeel and stay in my bed avoiding the world and my responsibilities. I am alone. And that is just the way that it is. I may have people who love me but I have no one who LOVES me. And that *hurts* in my bones. How silly.

Alone is not a four letter word, no matter how the bees in my brain try to tell me that it is. And if I’m really honest, alone is kind of exciting. I have never lived alone. Two weeks before I was married AT THE AGE OF 19 (capitalized to emphasize the absolute fucking insanity of that), I moved into the apartment we would share. I lived alone for precisely 2 weeks. I am 42. Forty-fucking-two. In my forty-two years stumbling around on this terrestrial plane, I have only lived alone for 2 weeks. And I don’t even remember them. So, honestly, maybe being alone isn’t the worst thing there is. Perhaps, I’m just scared of it because I have never done it. I’m human and we fear the unknown. I am excited by the idea of a living arrangement where I am the only person I need to take care of. I have been taking care of others for FAR too long. But then the other thoughts creep in, like, maybe I’ll be alone forever. And I really don’t want to be alone forever.

I have no way to predict the future, unfortunately, so I really can’t say with any certainty that I will, but as the bees do their bee dance in my grey matter, I am hit with the confidence that I will find love again. I’m too fucking adorable not to. Someone will inevitably fall in love with me. They won’t be able to help it. One look in my pretty green eyes and they will be under my spell. I dare you to try staring into my eyes and NOT fall in love with me. Someday someone will think I am the most beautiful woman they’ve ever met. They will see how smart and funny I am. These are incontrovertible facts. But before that happens, my heart will worry and the bees with buzz and I will be scared and sad and anxious about being alone.

The only thing I know to counteract this silliness is to learn to love myself and to learn to be ok with being alone. And I am trying, ok? Somedays it is easier than others to look at myself and see the amazing woman I truly am. And plenty of other days I look at myself and see the pick me girl and the squishmallow I feel like I am. And even though daily I am asking myself “who are you”, I know that I am a strong, amazing, bad ass bitch who has faced the goddamn storm and dared the lightning to strike. I may be made of soft matter but I bend, baby, never break.

I WILL get through all the doubt and fear and panic and terror. Because I love hard and big and often and loud. My capacity to love is my strength, not my weakness. And if I can love others that way, I can love myself that way. Which is what I am going to do. I AM afraid that no one will ever love me, so I’m going to love myself. I AM afraid that I will always be alone, but alone is not a four letter word.

One week left in the semester and then I have to face myself for a whole summer. Eesh. Here we go. We can do this. We can learn to love ourselves.