As of this posting, I am thirty-four years old. Approximately a week and a half ago, I had a stroke and was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. As if that wasn't sobering enough, I was informed that this was not my first stroke, that it was, in fact, my fourth. I'll find a way to heal from this. The important thing about this experience was that I realized, as I lay upon the floor, unable to move the right half of my body and mostly assured that I would probably die there and my cats would eat me, that I was living for everyone except myself. The decisions I'd made about my hobbies, career, religion, clothing, friends, activities, and abilities had all been based upon what other people thought or wanted. I had lived in constant fear of offending someone. Anyone.

Then life drew the Tower card on my behalf, and I got the opportunity to fall apart. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it really is the way I've always seen the Tower card in Tarot. Often portrayed as the big baddie of divination, the Tower card can represent sudden, cataclysmic, devastating change; but, as is usually the case, once you've been destroyed, you get a choice: Phoenix or Fail. What the hell does that mean? Well, it means that you can either rise again, like the mythological Phoenix who is reborn from its own ashes, or you can wallow in give-the-fuck-up.

Well, I've got some shiny new feathers, bitches.