Today’s deck is the Fantasy Colors Tarot.
It’s one of those that to be perfectly honest made me briefly think about AI images. Not because I think this one is AI-generated (it doesn’t seem like it is and believe you me, it’s easy to tell with a Tarot deck specifically) but it just made me think “well… it sure is pretty but nothing’s quite sticking”.
Lowkey wondering if maybe that’s what people think when they accuse something of being AI… I mean the types that have legitimate concerns, not the types that think skill is impossible to achieve and only a machine could achieve that sort of stuff.
Today’s reading is… pretty much about what today’s post is about, so let’s get to it.
I’ve been thinking a bunch lately.
Concerning, I know. Thankfully this time it’s more of a general check on myself and such.
I’ve been very afraid lately. Afraid of dying… but in a different way? I’ve been living alone for years, I’ve lived with the fear of dying in my apartment with nobody to find me for Lord knows how long. By the way, this fear wasn’t helped by someone ACTUALLY DYING IN THEIR APARTMENT AS THE BUILDING SMELLED OFF FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS DURING PANDEMIC.
It’s also different from that one time a car almost ran me over and my only thoughts were “who will send money to my family? Who will pay the company staff?”.
You see, this time the pattern is “Fer feels happy and then Fer feels the fear of death”. My maladjusted ass is so used to being depressed that the idea of “something nice is going on and I’d hate for the Ultimate End Of Things to End It” is somehow new.
The irony that someone like me that thinks about death, mortality, and legacy way too fucking much for my own good is still blindsided by the most basic ass type of fear of death is………….. a very me thing, to be fair.
Related to that, this year has been the year where I’ve been repeatedly called some variant of “kind” and “gentle” and I’m not used to praise, especially not PERSONAL praise.
I’ve mentioned this plenty of times in the past, but I’ve got a bit of a complex/trauma because growing up being the way I am led to me being pushed around a lot, which then led in my 20s to a cocktail of both feeling like I’m being taken for granted AND having such low self-motivation that I didn’t really feel like I could stand up to myself.
Now, I should clarify that there’s never been a lack of people describing me that way specifically. But the funny thing about praise is that if you don’t believe it yourself then no amount of repeating it to your face will make a difference.
While I’d say I’ve had decent enough mental clarity for a couple of years, this year has a general trend of like… daring to think people like me, basically.
So having my heart open to the IDEA of receiving praise in earnest and noticing it, and having people that I’ve not known for that long call me kind and gentle without really making any overtly big gestures…
There’s so many wounds I’ve got related to being the way I am that to get praise for it instead of grief hits me in a very specific way… by specific I mean putting the fear of death in me, as I mentioned earlier.
Not much of note today though. I spent most of the day writing in my physical journal to undo the Curse bit by bit and then went to Evil for a little bit.
Street Festa is tomorrow so we’ll see how it goes.