A Reading Regret

I have this situation haunting me. When this happens, I know that energy from the other people involved is keeping me connected to it, and to them. It was one of those moments when I chose to be "professional" instead of to be real, and it is a regret. Allow me to explain:

It began when I was driving west down Highway 40, on my way to a tarot job. This person I used to date almost twenty years ago just popped into my mind. Out of the blue, for no apparent reason. It had been one of those impossible transitional relationships, during my divorce--it couldn't have worked for so many reasons. But at the time, I was feeling so weak and beaten down, wanting to prove I was lovable, wanting to prove there was a relationship I had not failed at, and I kept at it for far too long. We do this to ourselves: we choose relationships that will reinforce our inner beliefs. We choose people who cannot love us when we don't know how to love ourselves. When the inner beliefs are wrong, the relationships are doomed. Anyway, this young man and I ended up having a very ugly split. I saw him a couple times around town, even years later, and he would always turn away.

Ugh, right?

So there I was, driving down the road, and for some reason he came into my mind. I thought nothing else about it.

I met my clients: an older woman and her younger friend. The older woman had seen me read at an event in Saks Fifth Avenue and wanted to schedule her own appointment. Lovely women. The younger one read tarot herself, which I was glad of later for reasons I'll soon explain.

The older woman's reading was first, and I don't recall much of it. Usually I do not remember the readings I do for others. They leave me almost as soon as they happen. I often compare them to dreams, when you're left with little fleeting fragments.

The younger one I remember quite a lot about though, although I don't recall her name. She had a boyfriend who I saw in the cards, and she told me his name.

"Oh, that's my son's name," I said. It is not a name you hear too often. Coincidentally, it is also the name of the past boyfriend I'd had, who had just popped into my mind. But that guy would be in his forties now, long gone from this area, probably married with a family. I didn't even bring it up.

Things kept coming up in her cards. I saw her boyfriend as the Magician card: very attractive, talented, and completely immature (the Magician is Number One in the tarot's major arcana of 22 cards. He has a long way to go). This sounded like my old boyfriend too, but of course, at the time I knew him almost 20 years ago, he WAS a kid.

So, I saw this guy being kind of a delightful distraction for this young woman, and their relationship not lasting forever. She asked about his past and his family. I saw his father, in this particular deck (the Shadowscapes deck), as the Emperor shaman. The medicine man.

It was about this point when I said internally, "Holy sh#t."

Tarot never fails to amaze me. My old boyfriend's father had been a pharmacist. I remembered that much. The mother card was put down next, and it was a princess (equivalent to the pages in the traditional deck, representing children and teenagers). My old boyfriend's mother was just a teenager when his father, considerably older, married her. I remembered this to be true, as well. It's a hard story to forget. I told the facts to my client as I saw them, leaving my memories out. As a tarot reader herself, she could see the cards and know the meanings plainly. Both of us marveled, me for reasons I did not share.

Internally, I was doing battle: should I share with her that he had once been my boyfriend? Logic told me, without asking his last name, that I did not know this for sure. But tarot, of course, does not operate on logic. Feelings told me that this was my old boyfriend's life we were looking into.

The entire time, I wanted to say, "is his last name...?" I wanted to tell her what was on my mind, but professionalism kept me from speaking. I thought it might potentially embarrass her. Or me. There should always be distance between me and a client, right? These were the battles in my head.

We wrapped the reading up. The women and I had bonded, despite my withholding of my own past with him. If it was him. What if I were wrong and it was someone else? Better to keep quiet. We hugged and they promised to call again. I gave them both my card, knowing that the young woman would probably show it to the boyfriend. Knowing he'd probably say, "Well, of course she was right. She knows everything about me!" The woman had seen the cards herself to know I had not orchestrated that. They called me--I did not call them. Still, I felt somehow wrong for not coming clean.

The energy of this situation, which happened at least six months ago, is still all around me today. I feel haunted, and wonder if the girl feels betrayed, if my ex feels scammed, I wonder just why this event won't die in my mind. Psychic energy is such a weird thing. We are all so connected--far beyond our understandings.

I would like to think that maybe I am writing this today to draw their attention, that one or both of them will read it. To show the awkwardness of my position, both in knowing, and not knowing, her reading. To tell my ex that a lot has changed, there are no hard feelings, and I wish him peace and love as he travels that major arcana to The World card.





© Julia Gordon-Bramer 2012