Today's Draw: Warrior Six from the Tarot of the Sidhe. Have you ever attended a high school reunion? Who were you back when you were a teenager? And did you have anxiety about reuniting with that part of you?
The Warrior Six speaks of success, reward, adoration and victory. It bears the words "No Foe Too Great" and depicts a king being hailed by all against the backdrop of a powerful sun. The sense is that there's nothing we can overcome. In a reading, I would say that great success is imminent and that whatever had to be braved to get to where you are will have been worth it. This is good news, because...
Today is the first day of a three-day 30th high school class reunion. Well, it's not really MY reunion. But it's the class reunion of a high school I attended for a few months, attended by people I knew for a few years 30 years ago. And I'm going. And I've been anxious about it for months. It has nothing to do with the people who will be there. Of those I know, they're all great people and they like me and all. But it has to do with my own insecurities.
Thoughts of school days always bring me back to that heavyset girl that was often teased and frequently got in trouble in the classroom. If it weren't hard enough to fit in considering that, I was a latchkey child and, instead of being able to play and hang out after school, I came home to cook for my parents and three brothers. And as if that didn't make it harder to establish friendships, we moved pretty much every two years. Then, in some places we lived, my dad was everybody else's dad's boss. So childhood didn't offer me a whole lot of breaks when it came to feeling like I fit in.
Right now, all that seems to be rushing back to me in some pre-reunion anxiety. I'm still heavyset. But I'm having a hard time reminding myself that everything else about me has changed. And the people I'll be seeing this weekend have also changed. I've forged online friendships with them over the past year and, with some of them, the friendships go beyond that. But somewhere in the past couple of weeks, the successful freelance writer, respected tarotist, beloved doggie mommy and trusted friend turned back into the insecure girl who felt not noticed, not liked and who, as a brother used to remind her, would never be liked by a boy because she was fat.
The reality of the situation is that I'll go in that room tomorrow and all the anxiety will be gone because I'll be the Tierney that many people enjoy and I won't give much thought as to who likes me and who doesn't. But we do this to ourselves, don't we? Torture ourselves anticipating situations that will never happen. The world just doesn't operate the way our darkest fears lead us to believe. I was talking to a friend yesterday about how time spent in anxiety is just wasted time. And it is. I've made huge strides in "turning the switch off", as my friend said. But one of the benefits of moving as often as I did when I was young was that you never had to run into "those people" again...haha. And tomorrow I'm doing that. Intentionally.
But now, 30 years later, I realize that it's not "those people" who were the problem. It was the way I felt about myself. Often the greatest foe we'll ever fight is ourselves. And I can't imagine a greater foe to overcome than the insecure teenage girl or guy who persists inside us. If you had asked me at any other time over the past 30 years, I would have sworn all that was healed and behind me. But you can't really have a reunion without reuniting with yourself, can you? Fortunately, as today's card reminds me, no foe is too great. On Monday I'll be that beloved doggie mom again, only with a few new friends and lots of memories of a special weekend.
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