Today’s deck is the Essential Tarot.
The name is the same as one of the first decks I tested for this blog, but it’s not the same one. This one’s neat, though.
Today’s reading says something to the effect of “feel confident in facing the darkness thanks to the balance and progress you’ve achieved”. Which will be relevant for today’s main point.
Today V told me the mess in my place was too much, that she was concerned about me and that she’s even considered getting an Airbnb for the rest of her trip at this rate.
This is reasonable, normal people don’t live in the conditions I do which is perfectly understandable. I should also point out that the tone of the conversation was very “I’m bringing this up now instead of dropping it when I’m at my limit” sort of thing.
I explained how it’s been a fight I’ve been going through for a while now and asked what I should prioritize to make her feel more comfortable. Which brought up that for the purposes of what she uses and does it’s the hallway, bathroom, shower, and kitchen.
So I decided to just start sorting and cleaning as much of it all as possible, with priority given to clearing and cleaning the hallway first.
It was a much a sign of “I’m willing to start immediately to show you I do mean it” as it was the fact that it’s been the odd Lazy Sunday that’s actually lazy. All of this happened at night by the way.
Now, I open the topic this way to emphasize that a) V was being very reasonable when she brought it up, b) I prioritized wanting to fix the discomfort on my own volition, and c) it’s all stuff I was going to do anyways sooner or later, the queue just shifted around.
With all of that in mind, I wanna actually analyze the fact that a few of my old cognitive distortions flared up a little in the process.
The first one was the old scab of feeling like I’m never enough. Just a voice screaming about how I’ve exhausted myself sorting and cleaning and yet I still got that sort of reaction out of someone.
The second was the one that’s like “people only ever approach me to ask for a favor or for bad news”. V and I have kept to each other for most of it all which is FINE (perhaps even ideal considering I like to keep my own space and such), so for her to make small talk about what I was playing (EYE Divine Cybermancy) only to tackle that topic kinda flared up that slight paranoia I have of people suddenly wanting to strike conversation I didn’t start.
However, as I mentioned, these are cognitive distortions, I’m keenly aware that while they exist for a reason (nothing comes out of nothing, after all), and that they want to be proven right on everything, they’re not really as right as they might feel in the moment.
It really made me think that… trauma and all that bullshit never really goes away. It scars you, but you learn to live with the scar. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Hopefully it’s also clear now why I opened the topic with s many clarifications as I did. I don’t wanna make it sound like I was attacked or felt attacked or something. coolheaded people approached a touchy subject in a coolheaded manner for coolheaded results. I just felt like pondering on the more internal side of it all.
Just feeling a lil’ bit proud of myself is all.
And really, there wasn’t much else to comment on today anyways…