Wheel of Fortune

I can see my life in my mind's eye as a patent leather clutch handbag with a golden chain handle, ripped from the seams, the contents dumped in a compacter, the outside skin refurbished, the color made new and a shiny new price tag attached. I've donated most of my clothes and my well curated book collection, my hair has grown long and my tarot cards long put away (save for one, my favorite child). I can't remember when I last went to a cafe to read, waste away an afternoon absorbing the beauty of being young and molding time into my hands as I see fit. My social calendar is surprisingly full and yet my time with friends has dwindled to almost nothing.

In a tarot deck the Wheel of Fortune is the harbinger of luck, good or bad and the changing wind. Two days in a row I've pulled the Wheel of Fortune card and I feel like the cards are trying to tell me something. More change? More well-worn ideas floating away against their will? I shuffle my cards to a gloss and my present and my future lives are nothing but a messy soup of conflict and joy.

I wish someone could see the view from my room. A pack of old growth trees not unlike the trees from the forests of the Twilight movie. In the morning the children from the montessori school wake me a lot earlier than I care for, but surely I should get up on my days off a lot earlier than ten in the morning like normal people do. I should get my exercise out of the way and run some errands I've been putting off like getting my car cleaned and buying a new pair of work shoes. It's impossible to remember I'm not a silly debutante and all these could go away.

The new clothes, gas in my car, my living quarters and all these fabulous wine-soaked dinners... It's all a gift, you see. All of these is a wonderful three-month old gift that I keep unwrapping over and over. A few years ago I wished for this kind of life. I was gardening and I took off my shoes to feel the earth on my feet and I wished for a better life. I wanted the silly debutante's life and it was a secret I kept underneath my black shirts, torn pants and Lara Croft boots.