[4] Reflection 24
Monday, 24th January, 2025, written between 20:20 - 21:30 with a cup of tea, and a few tears shed.
I don’t believe in magic in a traditional sense, but I do believe in magic insofar as humans like simple explanations, signs, and patterns. I wouldn’t go as far as to refer to myself as spiritual, but there’s definitely a part of me that appreciates what I mostly consider a placebo effect: the comfort of a tarot reading’s guidance, or saying good morning to a pair of magpies bounding through grass searching for trouble.
My partner got me an oracle deck for Christmas. Apparently, you should only acquire a deck of cards used for readings as a gift, and buying a deck for yourself would be considered an inauspicious start to a relationship with that deck. I’d wanted a deck for ages - and was planning to buy one - but after my partner informed me of this important fact, I waited patiently. Sure enough, my partner travelled up to Edinburgh over Christmas, and returned with a ‘Green Witch’s Oracle Deck’ adorned with beautiful art.
I did read the instructions that informed me to leave the deck in the moonlight, cards spread, to cleanse and gain energy. To wrap it in fabric and tie it with string, and keep it near to me for a number of weeks. But I wanted a reading, then and there, fresh out of the wrapping paper. I wanted to respect the deck, but it felt like it was fizzing in my hands, quirking its eyebrows at me. We made a conspiratorial agreement, the deck and I. One reading right now, to set everything in motion, to set the tone of the coming year, then I’d do anything it needed of me to keep our new friendship sweet. I shuffled the deck and handed it, face down, to my partner.
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Uncle Terry in the late 1960s demonstrating that cheeky smile.
2024 was a mixed year. The new job I’d started in late 2023 was - and still is - the best place I’ve ever worked. I had hoped working somewhere that aligned so closely with my personal interests would reduce the energy required to execute on my responsibilities. It did, but not by much. That was a hard realisation to come to terms with. Working a conventional job will always exhaust me.
In March, my uncle Terry passed away. In the ten-ish years I got to spend regularly meeting with my dad’s family, I’d come to love his brothers - Robert and Terry - for making me laugh endlessly, just like my dad does. They gifted me their strange sense of humour as I grew older. Uncle Terry would call me ‘Gertrude’. He’d point at a non-existent stain on my shirt and flick me on the chin when I looked down. He had the cheekiest smile I’ve ever seen, a mischievous man by nature, and I inherited at least some of my eclectic sense of style from him. He drank a lot and smoked a lot, and to this day, the smell of stale booze and cigarettes results in a flicker of comfort.
Issues between our families that arose in the coming years meant that I hadn’t seen him in close to a decade before he died. I will always regret that.
In July, sharp pains in my abdomen sent me to the GP, then to the hospital. Several blood tests and an ultrasound later, we confirmed nothing was about to pop. They noted that I had a mild case of shingles on my stomach, but that this was almost definitely - almost definitely - irrelevant. I went home.
When you recover from chicken pox as a child, it doesn’t go away. The virus becomes dormant, home-making in the nerves at the base of your spine. A weakened immune system - or, conversely, nothing at all - can cause the virus to re-emerge, now called shingles, now potentially one-hundred times worse. Left unmedicated, it can travel to the brain, causing paralysis and permanent blindness, or spread to your internal organs, causing sharp abdominal pains. I found this information on Google.
Within a few days, my hip was covered in sores and blisters, wrapped around my right-hand side in a thick line from abdomen to spine. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t lay down without pain, and over-the-counter painkillers did next-to-nothing. I called 111 (the pre-emergency health hotline in the UK) and livestreamed my near-naked body to a doctor. She immediately prescribed five tablets a day, for seven days, of a strong anti-viral. If I had waited one more day, the anti-virals likely wouldn’t have been effective, and I would have needed inpatient care.
The shingles took three weeks to die, during which time my partner did everything for me. I would have had to stay with my parents if not for him and I’m immensely grateful.
The severity of my late-medicated shingles left me with a condition called PHN - post-herpetic neuralgia. It’s nerve damage. My right hip is uncomfortably numb on the surface, but constant electrical tingles run beneath, ranging from crawling ants to sudden lightning shocks that cause me to yelp in pain. I couldn’t walk short distances for about three months, and even today, long walks leave me limping. It’s hard to find effective painkillers for nerve damage, especially when it’s clear that now, somehow, I know more about shingles than my doctors do. I’m in pain all day, every day, it fucking sucks, and I’m incredibly angry it wasn’t medicated while I was at my GP or the hospital, because I wouldn’t be in nearly as much pain if they had done their due diligence.
PHN can last up to a year in severe and rare cases. I’m on month seven. Shingles was, physically, the lowest I’ve ever felt and I get reminded of that every day.
On top of it all, there’s so much I wanted to do, that I didn’t. I didn’t write the book I wanted to write. I didn’t paint, I didn’t sculpt, I didn’t sketch in one of my numerous untouched sketchbooks. I joined and quit a choir within a few months. I didn’t see through to the end one single creative endeavour I started. Mentally, I’ve been chastising myself over this. Despite the unexpected shit 2024 threw my way, despite my constant exhaustion, I still found a way to blame myself for not living every minute to what I perceived to be its fullest. 2024 also saw me get a formal ADHD diagnosis. I started learning BSL. I read over one-hundred books. I was doing well in my dream job, a job I’d worked towards for the last five years. I have a wonderful partner, and a tiny little cat with a tiny little face who can’t stop eating mayonnaise from our plates when we aren’t looking. We are comfortable, and we are safe. My default day in 2024 was a good one.
Even so, I was determined to do better in the new year. To push myself towards my goals, no matter what.
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In December, my partner held his gift to me, the shuffled oracle deck, face down. I held a question in my head: ‘how should I approach 2025?’, and slipped the top-most card into my hand. I turned it over as we smiled, both feeling a touch silly. I began to read.
“Autumn: bounty, balance.
Autumn is a time to slow down. The high energy of summer’s expansion calms and turns to a slower rhythm. There is space for acknowledgment and gratitude, as the intense production of the previous season yields a crop. The autumn equinox is a time of balance, when the hours of daylight and night are equal. The Autumn card reminds you that balance is important. Don’t overtax yourself. Remember to refuel in times of hard work.”
I’d started crying before the end of the first sentence. I still felt silly, but for entirely different reasons. I had spent the last month talking about how much ‘better’ I was going to do next year, but in this exact moment, a card picked at random from a deck caused me to realise my perception of ‘better’ was narrow and unhelpful, and that I needed a different approach. I should take stock of my achievements, and remind myself of the hurdles I’d had to jump to attain them. 2025 did not need to somehow account for 2024, didn’t need to be better to spite it, but would be better because of it.
I will get there when I get there, and I will get there when I’m ready. I will get there in my own time, whatever time that may be, and wherever ‘there’ may end up being after I’ve started.
I don’t believe in magic in a traditional sense, but I do believe in the power perceived signs and meaningful patterns can give a gullible human brain. I think it’d be silly not to use that to my advantage, and take motivation and guidance anywhere I can find it when I’m feeling lost.
Thanks for reading.
