Waiting for the Right Time Mission #10
Is that not what your 20s are for: goodbyes?
I told myself I wouldn’t bore you all with another introspective post this week. I almost made you all read about my search for the perfect Halloween costume ahead of this weekend (I settled on a witch…I know, points for immense creativity). But in avoiding the Serious Topic, it became the one thing I’d been skirting all week that alas, needed some facing. Sometimes, we need to follow our feelings. Try that today—follow a feeling until it unravels.
TLDR; In this newsletter each week, I tackle something I’ve been avoiding. Or, waiting for the right time to execute.
Mission: Manifesting for my 25th year
There is one candle lit. We tried to get my taper one to stay put in its ceramic holder—the kind you imagine Victorian women gripping to traverse their electricity-free homes in the middle of the night. But it toppled over. We’ve got “witchy lofi” projected on the TV (that is the exact Youtube search term I used, unfortunately). It’s nearly 6:00 p.m., which during a late, Midwestern October means dusk will blanket us soon. The weak sun is just barely fighting its way through the backyard double doors. We’re drinking a rosé called Prophecy, featuring a floating goddess in pink silks with flowing, scarlet hair on its label. One of my best friends is in town and she’s shuffling her tarot deck, sitting cross-legged on my living room floor. The cards flash under her hands—a supercut of queens, kings, swords, and magicians. All of this to say, the vibes were just right.
When it came time for my reading, she fanned the deck out to me. My fingers traced over them until I landed on three. I held my breath. The moment suddenly felt charged, like I might actually get a glimpse at what this next year would turn out to be. If we were quiet enough, the figures staring back at me might just start whispering.
The first was a pale, ghostly woman with green and golden threads, a wand cast over her head with flutters of stardust flickering from the tip. This first card represents my past: The Magician. This card is said to point to talents and capabilities at your disposal. The Magician wants you to tap into your full potential, rather than holding back, “especially when there is a need to transform something.” In the past position, sources in my online search suggest the deck is telling you that you’re coming from a place of accomplishment—a time of flow.
Then we flipped the card representing my present reality: A vibrant skull with blacked-out eyes lay before me. Death. An ominous sight, but a card I was quickly reassured is often misunderstood. I wouldn’t need to spend the next few weeks looking over my shoulder. Instead, it represents transformation—the death of something, maybe your current reality. Releasing old patterns might follow, along with a sense of grief. But with expiration, there is also a beginning.
What I Want to Let Go
When I think of 25 I also think of 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17. 25-year-old me will also be 17-year-old me driving down Kendall Drive to catch one too many sunsets at the park by the bay. She will also be 19-year-old me interviewing random strangers on the streets of my college town, soaked to the bone in rainwater, head flooding with “I can’t do this.” I see 23 looking back at me, a little lost, a little stuck under comforters and an even heavier feeling. Or 21 dancing on a tabletop in a junior year apartment begging me to join her. I watch as 22 wraps the scarf a bit tighter around her face when she hears a cough on her emergency airlift back home. 25 is also 24 finding The Magician in her palm, peering back at 23, 22, 21, and 20 for a little inspiration.
But as much as I carry each distortion of me in photos and sharp memories I often recall with a wince, I am also none of these women. When I pulled that Death card, I felt relief. Finally. I could put all these heavy versions of her down. I’ve been thinking about what stories of myself, which bits and pieces of this girl, I’m okay tucking away. Which ones might I stop carrying? The person who gets disappointed when the dream doesn’t look how she thought it should. The person who can’t see the dream is here just painted in acrylics instead of oils. The girl who makes excuses for herself instead of writing the letter, the paper, the thought. The girl obsessed with impressing men. The girl obsessed with being impressed by reflections. The person who lets the older and wiser make her feel small. The one who doesn’t say yes to every plan because her bedroom is sinking—but safe. Perhaps, this is my sign to let them die.
As with any death, of the self or otherwise, there is mourning. And honestly, I’ve never been good at it. I wish I could go back and hold the 12-year-old girl’s hand while she wailed from the hall, trying to understand that her grandfather was gone now and so was the room she’d slept in almost every day she could remember. So were the mamey trees. I wish I could hold her every day during her freshman year when she missed home so much it made her sick, living in a place where everyone ate meals so early and didn’t know how to say her name. I wish I could give her a pep talk every time she felt she’d never find someone who could see the special in her, while every other girl sorted through the line of suitors at their feet. I wish I could give her back all the time she lost—I wish I could implore her to stop asking for the impossible. I wish I could dance along with her at sleepover all-nighters. I wish I could tell her to keep going while she scribbled furiously in calculus notebook margins. “That’s yours,” I’d tell her.
But she is not here anymore. I think it’s time to stop holding on. Is that not what your 20s are for: goodbyes? She was so brave given the circumstances. But she is tired. I can keep squeezing her into my storylines, but she’s said what she needed to.
What I Want to Keep
Finally, we flipped my future card: This is what 25 has in store. The Queen of Wands stares past me, a tall branch-like staff in her left hand and a sunflower in the right. She commands you to see through your creative visions and life’s purpose. She asks you to stay fiercely determined and bold. One source says this card points to a process that’s been years in the making, one that will lead to your future victories.
I think every wish made on a blown-out candle has led me here. I can’t remember what each version of me asked for but I imagine it was something like: finally learn how to ride a bike, make my crush notice me, travel to Paris, and reopen the world. I want to keep all their wildest hopes for me alive—their cringe, doe eyes, and confessionals, too.
In the spirit of fierce determination, I wrote down my manifestations. I spoke them out loud. I picture them as I try to fall asleep and feel my bones rattling inside my skin. I won’t share them all because I do still believe in secrets (and in mal de ojo) but I will share one: I will be bursting with creative energy and inspiration.
That is the kind of life I want for this version of me. I might just speak it into existence. What is inspiration if not noticing, and watching? Being here—not 848 miles in a different city or 100 miles deep in my own labyrinth.
The year will finally arrive on Saturday—if you’ve been here long enough you’re probably sick of hearing about it. So be it.
On a scale of waiting for the right time to facing my dread, I would say this week I’m ready for anything.
P.