46 Drafts, 46 years.

An update from the strange crossroads of a feral Xennial's middle aged girlhood in 2026; an exploration of Thoth's Atu VIII "Adjustment" tarot card.

Three weeks ago, I turned 46. I keep starting posts, and don’t finish them. There are, coincidentally, 46 drafts in my saved folder. I have so many things to say, and so little time and focus to flesh each thing out into a dignified full length post, and go through the process of editing them. But maybe I can try in a chaotic, experimental way.

Turning 46: 8, Adjustment year.

I am a professional reader of the Thoth Tarot deck. There is a formula by which you can figure out which Major Arcana card guides your year (calculated from birthday to birthday). Day+Month+Year= reduce until the number is less than 21. That is your card for the years.

Last year was 7, Chariot, which is also my lifetime symbol. Move fast and break things.

This year is 8, Adjustment, where you pick up the pieces of the things you broke while moving fast.

I turned 46, a number that feels neither here nor there. It’s like I just finally learned to embrace being in my 40s, only to now be closer to 50 than 40. People still assume based on my energy and appearance that I am still in my 30s, which I have mixed feelings about. Why is it considered more complimentary to appear young and innocent than older and wiser? Why does my appearance not “read” as 46, why could this not also be a way that 46 looks? I haven’t had any work done, or a fancy skincare regimen. I’m just unapologetically myself, which means neon red hair and dopamine dressing.

I spent my birthday crying on esketamine, which I am administered weekly to ameliorate my lifelong “treatment resistant” depression. I ate my birthday dinner at the grimly unglamorous Chipolte because I was hungry after esketamine and it was the nearest sort of healthy thing at my disposal. My mother sent me flowers, and I put them in a vase and retired to bed rot, which is something I’ve done a lot of in the past month.

The night before my birthday I went to see a Japanese film called Exit 8, because I have a series of recurring dreams about an exit in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station that doesn’t exist in real life, and a conspiracy enthusiast friend suggested they could belong to a genre of dreams called “Mallworld” which are supposedly disproportionately experienced by people who participated in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program in elementary school (which I did). Exit 8 was not related to my specific dreams, but it was a both hard and metaphysically deep film to watch, about the nature of being doomed to repeat patterns unless we actively seek to change them.

On my walk home from Esketamine on my birthday, I passed a doorway leading into the castle-like Nicholas Senn highschool in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, marked 8.

I used my key fob to activate the door to my new apartment which I moved into at the end of March, and realized that the number of my apartment adds up to 8.

According to this website:

The Adjustment (Justice / Truth) Card covers several topics. It symbolizes clear, objective recognition, conscious and determined judgment, impartiality, balance and honesty, indicating that we can enforce our rights. At the level of everyday life, he says that we live our environment as the echo of our being, confronted with the consequences of our actions in good and bad. If we are honest and honest, we recognize and reward our activities; if, on the other hand, with dubious means, we want to gain a fool, we fail. This gives the card a great sense of responsibility. It shows that we do not receive anything as a gift, but do not deny us anything, that we bear the responsibility for everything we receive or experience.

Justice. Adjustment. Truth. This is what it looks like:

Within three days of my birthday, I was retaining legal representation for a matter intimately related to the subject of this newsletter, which I am not presently at liberty to discuss.

Stepping on the scale to see if the low dose tirzepatide shot is working, when the actual question is whether I made good choices around nutrition this week. It doesn’t work unless I work with it.

Being served a video on social media informing me a person who harmed me a decade ago has received their justice in a surprisingly literal way.

Realizing that certain ways I’ve been living don’t make me happy anymore (maybe ever?)

Surfing the ebb and flow of perimenopause hormones that make me so horny, angry, tired, and sad, sometimes all four at once.

Consolidating my debt so I can pay it off in a structured way instead of just chaotically throwing any large lump sum I receive at it.

Downsizing my possessions slowly, consistently, until hopefully I am down to what I actually need, use and love and nothing more. (This is a much more emotionally brutal ordeal than what Mari Kondo would have you believe). Figuring out how I can create a home (hell, a life) that doesn’t feel like living in constant chaos as a person with ADHD.

Reminding myself that when I’m too tired to keep giving and giving, I can just say no when a friend or client asks for my time on a night that I’ve promised to give myself. I don’t have to be angry, or resentful, or give in to the request in the fear of social isolation or poverty. On that note, how can I build a life with less screen addiction in general?

Giving myself permission to rest a LOT after a month where I was simultaneously house hunting, packing up and reducing four years of possessions in a home that was making me sick, doing deep processing on esketamine twice a week, filing my self employment taxes, and attending a trade show for “work” (but paying for it out of pocket). I burned my candle on all ends, and while it feels like I do nothing but bed rot now, I’m paying back the energy I borrowed to get it all done.

If you made it this far dear reader, how are you doing? What tarot year are you traveling through?