Tarot Tales

A Meeting at the Harvest

The weeks leading up to the local Oktoberfest were a nightmare for me. All of the preparations were left to me. I had to hire musicians, plan the events, and arrange for enough food to feed a whole town. Every time I thought someone might step up and take on a bit more, they failed to do so. "You're young," they would say. "You can handle it." And I did handle it, I suppose. Barely. By the night before the festival I was sick to death of emails and phone calls. I thought that once the next morning came, and the festival was actually in motion, that I'd finally be able to relax. I was wrong.

The day of the festival, my anxiety kicked into high gear. While other people were laughing and enjoying themselves, I ended up running all over town, double-checking with everyone I had been making plans with. I must've visited every damn bakery and restaurant within the town at least five times over the past three weeks, and yet here I was visiting them on the day of the festival just to soothe my own worries. And it wasn't just the food that had my attention; I made a point of checking in with every vendor and musical act set up in town square. I had spent the past month getting things ready so that everyone could enjoy themselves and have fun. I needed to be absolutely sure that all my hard work wasn't for nothing. But as a result, I wasn't able to enjoy the fruits of my own labor.

As the sun began to set and the days activities began to wind down, I found myself exhausted. I found a tree stump off to the side of Town Square an sat down on on it, head in my hands. I tried taking deep breaths and focusing on the moment, but I still couldn't banish the anxious thoughts from my mind. I felt hopelessly overwhelmed, and was ready to cry.

"Wow," said a raspy voice to my left, "you look like shit." I turned towards the voice and found myself face to face with an old woman, also sitting on the stump. I had no idea who she was or where she had come from, but she seemed oddly familiar, like a distant relation you just saw at the reunion but whose name you can't quite remember. She smiled, and it seemed to me like her whole face brightened up with motherly amusement.

"You know," she said, "you remind me of myself when I was younger. I was always trying to do what others expected of me. I worked ten times as hard as anyone else, and hardly got any of the credit. And I was always afraid of screwing up. So eventually I decided, screw it. If I screw up, somebody else can pick up the slack. It's not my job to please everybody at once, so I won't."

"How did everyone else feel about that?" I asked. She laughed.

"Honestly, there were some people who were upset, but so what? I had to take care of myself, too. Everyone has to take care of yourself. You, for example. You could probably stand to take better care of yourself." I stared at my shoes.

"Yeah, well, easier said then done," I replied.

"Anything worth doing usually is. But I'll tell you a secret: you don't have to do it all at once. Just a little at a time. Tell you what - go to the community bonfire and just hang out. Be there for yourself, and let someone else worry about all this organizational crap."

"Wait, how did you know I organized this?" I asked, turning to face the woman. But she was gone. I looked around, but there was no trace of her whatsoever to be seen. I was alone on the tree stump. 

I sat there for a second and pondered what I had just experienced. Had I been talking to a ghost? Some sort of mental health guardian angel? My own subconscious? Or was the old woman secretly some kind of covert ops agent and was just that good about slipping away unnoticed? I thought about this for several minutes before standing up and stretching.

"Fuck it," I said to myself. "I'll let someone else worry about that." And with that, I left to go join the townsfolk gathering for the bonfire. 

Cards Used:

Protagonist - Four of Swords Reversed
Conflict- Four of Wands
Action - Eight of Cups
Outcome - Ten of Swords Reversed