Is it really me?

I used to joke about this being my card: hahaha. I was naive enough to think that I could move to a new city and start over. Be a new “me” and leave all my baggage behind. I managed it for about a year, and then the cracks started to appear – or should I say crackpots. People, things from your past, stuff, it turns out you can’t keep it under your bed or in a storage unit for very long. It grows like a fungus, it ticks like a bomb, it breeds like a bunny…well, you get what I mean. Your baggage can never be left behind, especially when you really want to lose it.

My mother taught me Tarot when I was small, and since this is Card 0, it’s the first one in the deck. I always thought that it would be great to be the Fool – he looks like he’s going on an adventure with his dog, he’s got his lunch tied up on a stick, and he’s got those cute yellow boots. But of course Mother always had to point out that the Fool had his eyes shut and was about to step off a cliff.

How do you know that? I’d argue. Maybe he was going to stop there for lunch. She would shake her head and say that maybe I was going to be a fool, after all. She may have been a little bit right. The second year of my “New Life” in the city has turned into a fool’s paradise. If I’m not jumping off a mountain, I’m stepping in a pile of something warm and squishy.

But, you know, I’m having much more fun now. So it’s worth uncorking the genie’s bottle, opening Miss Pandora’s box, or just paying attention to what’s under the bed. Give it a whirl. (You can read all about my ‘coming out’ year in “Embracing the Fool,” click on the title to see the book.)