The sun dipped lower in the sky, and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief that the earlier rain had relented. I peered out the window of my rented room on New Town’s Scotland Street, waiting for the coffee that would keep me up all night to finish percolating. I tore a scrap of paper out of the notebook that had flown across an ocean with me. On it, I scribbled in ballpoint: I release my imposter syndrome. It has never served me, and it will serve me no more.
Read MoreSometimes, I pull The Hermit in the morning, before I fill my water bottle, pack my lunch, pull on my shoes, and leave for the day. In those moments, I feel puzzled. I question the pull, annoyed that my deck would be so cheeky as to offer me a vision of stillness amidst the revolving plates of my to-do list, with family in town, a holiday trip to pack for, and oh yeah, that historical novel I’m supposed to be writing in my free time.
I can’t stop pulling the Death card, and I’m exhausted at the thought of what accepting its medicine entails. What more is there to lose? Clogging the drain, my hair. At the graveyard, my late friend Joe. All my remaining friendships, distant. Maybe it’s I who am untethered, afloat in the cosmos, devoid of blood and motion in my cells. I haven’t anything left to surrender.
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