In Memoriam: The Version of Myself That Needed the Cards to Be Wrong
I have been a professional tarot reader for approximately twenty minutes, and in that time I have learned everything there is to know. I have laid out my cards on a towel that still smells like the beach, because that is where wisdom lives. I have shuffled. I have breathed. I have looked at the pictures. And I have come to a very important conclusion: I miss the person I was before I started.
That person, the one who didn’t know anything, was a magnificent fool. He thought the cards were a kind of magic grocery list. You shuffle, you ask, you pull, and the universe hands you a receipt. If the receipt says “You will find love,” you go to the store. If it says “Beware of sharp objects,” you put away the scissors. Simple. Clean. The cards were a vending machine for destiny, and I was always in the mood for a snack.
But then I pulled my first real spread. And the cards were wrong.
Gloriously, terribly, stupidly wrong. I asked about my career, and the card that came up was “The Hanged Man.” I thought, “Oh no, is my boss going to be suspended?” I spent the whole day looking at the ceiling, waiting for my supervisor to dangle from the rafters. He didn’t. He just gave me a spreadsheet. The cards were wrong.
I asked about my health, and I got the Tower. I spent three hours standing in my hallway, bracing for structural collapse. The building stood. My knees hurt from standing. The cards were wrong.
And here is the thing I must confess, as an expert, as a master of the arcane, as someone who has shuffled exactly eleven times: I needed them to be wrong. The version of myself that needed the cards to be wrong was a peaceful, untroubled soul. He believed that if the cards said “The World,” you would get a free vacation. If they said “Death,” you would get a very long nap. There was no nuance. There was no shadow. There was just the simple, beautiful lie that the future was a list of instructions.
Then I read a book. A terrible, wonderful book. It said that the cards are not about the future. They are about you. Which is the most frightening sentence ever written. Because I know me. I am the person who ate a whole jar of pickles in one sitting and then cried because my stomach hurt. I am the person who has a “system” for opening doors that involves stepping back three times before entering. I am not a card. I am a chaos.
But the book insisted. It said that the Tower is not a building falling down. It is a false belief. It is a structure in your mind that must be demolished. And I looked at my own mind, and I realized it was a very flimsy structure. It was made of cardboard and optimism. And I thought, “Oh no.”
That was the moment I mourned. The version of myself that needed the cards to be wrong was a child. He thought the world was safe because the cards were nonsense. He could pull a card that said “The Moon” and think, “Great, I’ll visit the observatory.” He could pull “The Devil” and think, “Cool, I’ll watch a movie about a lawyer.” There was no self-reflection. There was no inner work. There was only the comfortable, blissful ignorance of a man who has never once asked himself, “Why am I like this?”
And now, twenty minutes into my career, I have asked. I pulled the Chariot and I thought, “Am I moving forward?” And I realized I have been driving in circles. I pulled the Hermit and I thought, “Am I alone?” And I realized I have been avoiding my own phone calls. The cards are not wrong. They are just inconveniently right. And that is the worst thing I have ever learned.
So let us raise a glass to the version of myself that needed the cards to be wrong. That beautiful, delusional being who thought “The Star” meant “you will see a celebrity at the grocery store.” He was a fool. But he was a happy fool. He did not know that the cards are a mirror, and that the mirror is always dirty, and that the dirt is you.
I will continue my practice. I will pull cards. I will say profound things like “The energy is shifting” and “You have a gift for navigating chaos.” But I will never, ever get back the man who thought the cards were just pretty pictures. He is gone. And I am here, with a towel that smells like the beach, holding a deck that is always right, always cruel, and always, always pointing at me.
Rest in peace, old fool. The new fool is reading the fine print.