What If It Gets Even Better?

The Empress: Remember Who You Are

The Empress has been showing up in my tarot readings a lot lately.

And when something keeps showing up, I tend to think it’s worth paying attention to. Or, at the very least, considering.

And I consider things best when I’m writing.

Yesterday, on 11/11, I sat down with my cards and asked two questions:

Where am I? And show me how good it can get.

Then, because I love stories, I asked the cards to tell me one.

And there she was. The Empress. Again. Front and center.

I’ve never particularly identified with The Empress. The Queen of Wands? Absolutely. The Star? Oh, yes. But The Empress?

She’s always felt a little unattainable to me.

Maybe because I’ve spent so much of my life identifying with the woman who is becoming. The woman who is healing, growing, rebuilding, learning, and reaching toward something.

The Queen of Wands knows her fire. The Star knows how to hope.

But The Empress?

She knows how to receive.

And that’s something I’ve struggled with.

The Empress is generative. She creates. She receives. She inhabits her own abundance. She doesn’t wait for her life to begin because she’s already living it.

She isn’t chasing, auditioning, or trying to convince anyone of her worth.

There is no scrambling.

She simply is.

And lately, she keeps showing up in my readings, like a message one ignores through the gentle nudges until the Universe finally whacks you upside the head.

So, fine. I’m listening.

What is she trying to tell me?

Perhaps she’s asking me to see myself through a different lens.

Because I am not a woman waiting for her life to begin.

I’ve built a home. I’m raising a daughter. I’m writing, teaching, creating, exploring, and continually finding new ways to understand myself and the world around me.

I have a life full of possibility.

And yet, lately, I’ve felt like I’m waiting for something.

For love. For connection. For adventure. For the next chapter to begin.

As though the life I’m living now is somehow a prelude to the one I really want.

The Empress doesn’t ask me to stop wanting more.

She asks me to stop treating myself as though I’m waiting to become the woman I want to be.

I am her.

And maybe that’s why she’s been so difficult for me to recognize.

I’ve become quite comfortable with the process of becoming. With identifying what needs healing, what needs changing, what I might do differently.

But what if there’s nothing I need to do to deserve the abundance I want to experience?

What if I’m already standing in the garden?

The Five of Cups: Grieving What Didn’t Happen

The next card in my story is the Five of Cups.

Disappointment.

Well, isn’t that fitting?

I like this card here because I do feel grief.

I grieve people who’ve come into my life and left it. I grieve the things that remain unrealized. I hold disappointment and frustration over what didn’t become what I’d imagined.

There are things I want deeply. Things I’ve hoped for, worked toward, made room for, and repeatedly found myself on the other side of an unmet expectation.

And sometimes what hurts isn’t even losing something I had.

It’s losing something I thought I might have.

The possibility. The imagined future. The story I had already begun telling myself.

There is nothing wrong with grief or disappointment. They’re part of the wonderful, messy range of emotions we humans get to experience.

I don’t want to pretend they don’t exist. Or that I’m somehow failing at gratitude because I still feel their weight.

But I do wonder how often I allow disappointment to shape my expectations of what comes next.

How often does one thing not working out become evidence that nothing will?

How often do I mistake what hasn’t happened yet for what will never happen?

What I find particularly interesting is that the Five of Cups sits between The Empress and the Ace of Cups.

My story moves from abundance, through disappointment, and into renewal.

Not around disappointment. Not by pretending it doesn’t hurt.

But through it.

Through allowing myself to mourn, cry, scream, feel frustrated, and acknowledge what didn’t happen.

Because renewal doesn’t require me to deny my disappointment.

It simply asks me not to build my future around it.

To acknowledge what was missing without deciding that something will always be missing.

And that’s probably a good reminder for someone who occasionally finds herself wandering into a scarcity mindset.

The Ace of Cups: What Is Still Possible?

The Ace of Cups is the root of the powers of water.

It’s emotional renewal. The beginning of something with the potential to nourish me. A reminder that love, connection, and joy are not finite resources.

The Five of Cups says, “Look at what didn’t happen.”

And the Ace responds, “Look at what is still possible.”

I love that.

Because the invitation here seems to be to become emotionally available to life again.

Not indiscriminately available to people. Not willing to accept whatever someone offers simply because I want connection.

But available to genuine connection.

Of course, I’d love to read this as a new romance.

And it could be.

But it could also be falling in love with my own life in a new way. A creative beginning. A friendship that opens something in me. An experience that reminds me how much I still have to feel.

Or perhaps it’s something even simpler.

Learning to receive.

I spend so much of my life creating, nurturing, offering, doing, and making things happen.

What would it look like to allow something to come toward me?

To accept an invitation without wondering what it means. To receive affection without questioning its sincerity. To enjoy someone’s company without immediately trying to figure out where it’s going.

To let a moment be beautiful without needing it to become something else.

Perhaps the Ace of Cups isn’t asking me to go looking for more love.

Perhaps it’s asking whether I’m making room to receive what’s already available.

The Seven of Swords: The Futility of Figuring It All Out

So, what stands between me and that happiness?

Apparently, my own damn head.

The Seven of Swords.

Futility.

In the Thoth deck, this card speaks of scattered mental energy, plans that don’t quite work, and efforts that produce diminishing returns.

And, oh, does that sound familiar.

I think about all the ways I try to manage uncertainty.

I analyze someone’s behavior. I wonder what a message meant. I replay conversations, imagine possible outcomes, and try to anticipate rejection before it happens.

I attempt to figure out what someone else is thinking so I can decide how to feel.

And without even realizing it, I spend more energy managing the possibility of disappointment than actually experiencing my life.

What an exhausting way to live.

And what, exactly, does all that thinking accomplish?

Can I analyze someone into loving me? Can I anticipate every possible disappointment so thoroughly that none of them will hurt? Can I reason my way into emotional security?

Nope.

And yet, there I am, trying.

Maybe that’s the futility.

Not that thinking is bad, or that discernment isn’t valuable, but that I’m asking my mind to accomplish something it simply cannot do.

I’m trying to use certainty as protection against vulnerability.

Especially in relationships.

I don’t need a strategy. I don’t need to become more desirable, accommodating, mysterious, or whatever else I imagine might make someone choose me.

I recently heard someone say something along the lines of, “My people are looking for me, too.”

I love that thought.

But how are they supposed to recognize me if I’m busy trying to become someone I think they’ll want?

The work isn’t figuring out how to be chosen. It’s showing up as myself and allowing the people who recognize me to find me.

And recognizing them in return.

The Nine of Cups: Happiness

And how good can it get when I put all that down?

Happiness.

The Nine of Cups.

In the Thoth deck, this card speaks of emotional fulfillment, pleasure, satisfaction, and the experience of having enough.

Look at the illustration.

The cups are overflowing. There is movement, abundance, and a sense of delight.

And how interesting that this card follows the Seven of Swords.

The Seven is me trying to figure everything out.

The Nine is me enjoying what’s here.

One is occupied with what might happen.

The other is experiencing what is happening.

That’s a big difference.

Maybe the next chapter of my life isn’t about working harder to get what I want. Maybe it’s about allowing myself to enjoy what I already have while remaining open to what else might arrive.

And happiness isn’t limited to romantic happiness or the thrill of someone wanting me.

It’s the kind that comes from feeling deeply satisfied with my life.

From laughing until my stomach hurts. From having people around me who genuinely enjoy my company. From being desired without having to question it.

From adventures, creative expression, pleasure, good conversations, spontaneous invitations, and feeling at home in my own skin.

From a life that feels full because I’m actually participating in it. Not because every desire has been fulfilled. Not because there’s nothing left to want. But because I don’t have to wait until everything I want arrives before I allow myself to be happy.

I think that’s an important distinction for me.

I’ve spent so much time thinking about the things I still want that sometimes I forget how much there is to enjoy right now.

And perhaps the Nine of Cups is asking me to expand my definition of what a wonderful life looks like.

And then let myself have it.

The Princess of Cups Reversed: The Stories I Tell Myself

And then, just when I think I’ve reached the happily-ever-after portion of my reading, along comes the Princess of Cups reversed.

Of course.

Because apparently, we aren’t finished.

The Princess of Cups is the earthy aspect of water. She’s imaginative, romantic, intuitive, sensitive, and receptive.

She dreams.

And I love a dreamer.

But reversed, I wonder what her shadow might reveal.

Emotional uncertainty? Idealization? Fantasy? Becoming so immersed in what could be that I lose sight of what actually is?

Ouch.

Is this a warning about romantic projection?

Because I’m certainly guilty of that.

I meet someone. There’s chemistry, curiosity, possibility.

And what do I do?

I start imagining the story before the other person has demonstrated they can participate in it.

I begin filling in the blanks with possibility instead of allowing the person to reveal who they actually are.

And then, when reality doesn’t match the story I’ve imagined, I’m disappointed.

Not necessarily because someone promised me something and failed to deliver.

But because I gave possibility more weight than evidence.

And there’s another side to this.

Maybe I’ve become so accustomed to anticipating disappointment that I sometimes hesitate to trust my own feelings.

I want connection, but I’m wary of wanting it too much.

I want to be open, but I don’t want to be foolish.

I want to believe in possibility, but I don’t want to mistake it for a promise.

So I oscillate between imagining what could be and trying to protect myself from what might not happen.

Which brings me right back to the Seven of Swords.

One card has me trying to think my way into certainty. The other has me imagining my way into a future.

And neither one necessarily keeps me grounded in the present.

Maybe the Princess isn’t asking me to stop dreaming.

Maybe she’s asking me to let reality participate in the dream.

To allow myself to be romantic, hopeful, and open while letting someone earn access to the most tender parts of me.

To enjoy the flutter of a new connection without turning it into a story before it’s had a chance to unfold.

To recognize the difference between what I feel, what I hope, and what I actually know.

And perhaps she’s also reminding me that I am responsible for tending to my own emotional needs rather than waiting for someone else to recognize and fulfill them.

There’s something interesting about the Princess of Cups appearing at the end of a reading that begins with The Empress.

Both are creative. Both are receptive. Both are connected to beauty, pleasure, and possibility.

But The Empress inhabits the life she’s creating.

And the Princess, in her shadow, risks becoming lost in the life she’s imagining.

Maybe that’s the story.

What If It Gets Even Better?

There are four Cups in this reading.

That’s a lot of water.

A lot of emotion, longing, possibility, pleasure, disappointment, and renewal.

And only one Sword.

One little reminder of how easily I can let my thoughts interrupt the experience of living.

I asked the cards to tell me a story.

I’m not a tarot reader, and I don’t claim to know whether cards predict anything at all.

But tarot draws me inward. Through its symbolism, I recognize my own patterns, hopes, fears, failings, and subconscious desires.

It gives me a language for things I sometimes struggle to articulate.

And I think this story is telling me something I’ve needed to hear.

That I can grieve what didn’t happen without losing sight of what still might.

That I can want more without treating what I already have as insufficient.

That I can be open to love without inventing a future with someone who hasn’t shown me they’re capable of sharing it.

That I can stop trying to manage every uncertainty and allow myself to experience the life unfolding in front of me.

And perhaps most importantly, that The Empress isn’t some distant version of myself I’m working toward.

She’s already here.

I’ve been so accustomed to becoming, to reaching, to looking toward the next chapter, that I sometimes forget to appreciate the woman who is already living this one.

The woman who has built a beautiful life. Who creates, loves, dreams, desires, and still has so much she wants to experience.

I don’t have to stop wanting more.

I don’t have to pretend disappointment doesn’t hurt.

And I certainly don’t have to convince myself that what I have is all there will ever be.

But perhaps I can stop treating happiness as something waiting for me on the other side of an unmet desire.

Perhaps I can let myself have it now.

And what if it gets even better?

And today, thanks for listening. Thanks for letting me write to understand… and share with you.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤︎‬