Caterwauling

“The ability to bend an inch at a time while seeming to stand up straight is a useful and gendered skill. Most women I know do it regularly. They bend until they’re pretzeled and then blame themselves for the body aches.”

Isabel Kaplan

On the fourth day of December, the tarot advent calendar said to me …

You’ve got plenty of time to sort out what you need to, if you pace it right.

GURL.

In 24 hours, I have my final dentist appointment of the year. Then back to work.

I have a chalkboard full of to-dos for work and home that I wanted to achieve during PTO.

I erased a lot, which is great. But there’s still a lot on the list.

I think about the remaining items and wonder, if not now, when? When it’s back to up at the crack o’ me, no lunch breaks other than turning off Teams for a half-hour and having to shop, cook and clean in the evening hours, when can I do the rest?

My friend JD reminds me that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Get up early. Stay up late. Work smarter.

If he could write three books while working two jobs and traveling 14 times, so can you.

He’s not wrong. I don’t want to be THAT busy. But, maybe I could write one book over the course of a year instead?

The Two of Coins reminds us maintain balance BUT be careful because you can fall on your ass and twist your ankle during this delicate, never-ending dance.

How easy it is to fall out of balance and never get back. So prioritize the money-making shit and the “have to do” shit but also prioritize the fun shit.

So, basically, sleep when you’re dead, as Bon Jovi sang.

“A heartbroken person is unlike any other person. Their time moves at a completely different pace than ours,” she explained.

“It’s this mental, physical, emotional ache and feeling so conflicted. Nothing distracts you from it. Then time passes, and the more you live your life and create new habits, you get used to not having a text message every morning saying, ‘Hello, beautiful. Good morning.’ You get used to not calling someone at night to tell them how your day was.”

— <a href=”https://www.eonline.com/news/1356598/taylor-swift-and-harry-styles-went-on-their-iconic-central-park-date-10-years-ago-inspiring-these-songs“>Queen Taylor</a>

On the third day of December, the tarot advent calendar said to me …

Do a “future, festive you” some favors today.

I love wands because I love fire.

I also don’t use fire in my magick anymore because mom can’t stand the smell of candles or incense (scented or not — even the burning smell bothers her).

Also, catbutt. My furriest baby, Belly, always catches me sneaking a quick candle burn and walks across the flame. Then I have to hear about it that mom smells burning fur.

That’s my connection to the Three of Wands. You realized with the Two of Wands that there’s a whole world out there, and it’s your fiery little oyster. Which direction will you pick?

In the Three, you’ve got the vision. And you need to act on the desires before they flame out.

I feel like I am permanently stuck at three.

It’s good in a way because threes symbolize power. But if you don’t tap into that potential, even if it turns out to be a complete and utter disaster, you don’t get to the celebration stage that the Four of Wands represents.

How do I best serve future, festive me?

Right now I’ve been coming back from severe burnout. But I was met with an issue that messed up two days.

The issue got resolved this morning. And I have to thank past me for having the foresight to prepare for the fallout from a mess I didn’t know was coming.

And the issue only got resolved after I lay awake worrying about it. I told myself, go back to sleep — you’ll know what to do when you go to do it.

Sure enough, at 8 a.m. I chose the solution I wasn’t planning to choose. And it saved me a fortune as well as two more days of inconvenience.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be for future me, not past me.

But maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here about having two options and JUST KNOWING what to do … and then DOING it.

Future me has a choice of two different elements — water or earth.

Practical me (usually the winner) really wants earth. Go figure. Earth equals practicality. Stability.

The other Gemini Twin wants water. Flow to complement the ebb. Uncertainty, but balance.

I wonder if I just made a major life decision with this post.

On the second day of December, the tarot advent calendar said to me …

This year, whatever feels special to you is where the magic is.

Makes me think about what I wrote for day one of the advent calendar — what is my calling, if not this?

I think my calling is within this. I’ve loved having a hand in 40 different pots for the past 20 years.

But after two decades, having a skill set that’s an inch deep and a mile wide is disconcerting.

Being 30-ish for so long, I’m accepting that there are fewer years left than have been lived. That maybe the bucket list needs to be shorter or I need to start checking things off faster.

I think the pandemic taught me to find wonder in the ordinary. But it also taught me to stop seeking magic. Including my own, but mostly in others.

Where I expect to find magic is in an odd place … in discipline. That’s my word for 2023.

Lately I’ve been too tired to do anything that brings joy or satisfaction. So I give myself grace for doing the bare minimum, since my minimum is not others’ minimum.

But, this period of grace could last forever, as I’m still tired. I think the way to get un-tired is to do more. Rather, do different things, and more of them.

I wouldn’t say it’s a matter of finding magic in the mundane.

Now, lord knows I’ve read enough mundane tweets from enough mundane people to know there ain’t no magic there. And never will be.

But maybe the magic is in actively seeking it beyond what already happens on its own.

So when that cloud hands me yet another cup, as it always does, I’m “saying yes instead of no,” as T-Swift sang.

Except to meetings. God, what has been most wonderful about the last two weeks was getting rid of the useless meetings and conversations and people (just two, really) I do my level best to avoid.

How do I zap the time sucks and fill that time with more joyful things? Talk about a life resolution, not just a New Year’s one.

On the first day of December, the tarot advent calendar said to me …

You are Boss Santa, in charge of a magical run-up to the big day. What do you want to happen? What are you most looking forward to? What new activities or traditions could you try this year? What foreseeable snags or pitfalls do you want to ditch or delegate?

That’s a lot to unpack. Too much, really.

What am I looking forward to? How about not forgetting to buy turkey, as I did on Thanksgiving. Definitely don’t want to make “going to McDonald’s” a tradition.

The sad part is I was on vacation and had nothing BUT time to shop for everything else. Oy!

I like this whole “getting paid to not work” business. I intend to repeat it for Christmas. Preferably far, far away from here.

I’ve been closely following Christina Applegate and her battle with MS as she works on “Dead to Me.”

She’s worried this will be her last project, as her condition worsens and will impact her ability to be active for long periods of time.

She worries that she can ONLY work five hours a day.

A five-hour marathon sounds awesome.

I mean, yeah, she’s used to working all day and night. I used to be used to that, too. But I don’t want that anymore.

So I guess when thinking about what I would change for upcoming and future holidays, feeling OK with “just” working five hours seems like a good goal to have.

I mean, it probably means getting a different job and getting used to having less money. But it’s something I think increasingly more about.

I’ve been enjoying being supervisor/psychic healer to 25. But they keep talking about hiring someone to take the crypto half of the duties. Which makes me sad because that team is growing on me. But if I had my way about it, I’d pick one franchise (out of the remaining four) to really blow out of the water.

I always say “if I were editorial director, I’d …”

That’s what I’d do. Focus. Ditch the hags … I mean snags … and not need two weeks to try to recuperate from utter and complete exhaustion.

There’s a new goal for the new year. Not save up all my days and need a whole damn month to recuperate from burnout.

As for what to look forward to, I guess that depends on what I’m allowed to do.

Or maybe I’m allowed to do more (or, for the purpose of this conversation, LESS) than I think.

As one of my favorite seers wrote, “Use your energy to its best ability.”