All my single ladies!

Walking into work that day had to be the hardest thing I ever did.  My eyes were sore, and I was regretting wearing my contacts.  I had decided to ditch the makeup, though not all that uncommon, and had thrown my hair up into a ponytail.

"Are you okay?"  my boss asked.

Was I okay?  The answer was no.  I had spent most of the night before knowing that I would be ending my relationship soon.  I had spent that day crying in my room after the break up.  But I didn't tell that to my boss, I plastered that sorority girl smile on my face and said, "Yes."

Hardest thing I had ever said.

Relationships are not easy things.  They take a lot of time and energy.  They take compromise.  But at some point in time, it had become easier for me to be in a relationship then to imagine being single.

But now I was single.

And on a whim, I brought the Nine of Pentacles with me to work.  I tucked it into my apron and run my fingers over it when I felt sad, as if to remind myself that there was more to my life than that boy.  That there was more for me to than just being someone's girlfriend.  There was life beyond every boy and any boy.

I survived that day.  I survived that month.  And I survived that next big break up.

According to It's All in the Cards by John Magiapane, the book I taught myself to read Tarot with, the Nine of Pentacles represents the value of money.  Pentacles and coins almost always represent money or material wealth to me.  If they represent something more abrstract, I take  the card to represent skills that are needed in the workforce or to gain that material wealth.

When I give readings to my musician roommate about her music, the coins are always in abundance.  I can always tell when her question had been about her music or getting into grad school, the question would always pose itself as a pentacle.  But never as this card.

Magiapane, said one word in his description that a 14 year old girl took off running with.  "Single." There was a card about being single, and being strong through it.  It was a meaning that I very much tailored to fit my life and what I needed something to say to me.  What I missed was everything else that Magiapane said: "This card often appears in the layout of mature women who are widowed or single, independent and well off."  The woman in the nine of pentacles is not single because no one wants her.  For the most part she is single out of choice.  She has not found someone who is her equal to share in her wealth and hard work.  She has not settled for anything less then everything she wants.

And that is more than okay.  That is what every woman should do.  And it is something I am still learning.

My most recent break up has been much easier on me this time around.  I have to admit, I'm in a much better place in life.  I'm a little more sure of who I am and I appreciate what I have to offer to someone else.  Truth be told I am in no rush to jump into anything new.  I'm more concerned with finding out who I am and what I am looking for.

Because what I can create is just as beautiful as what the woman in the Nine of Pentacles has created.

So this blog post was sparked by some posts that my cousin was putting on facebook.  (I swear I don't spend all of my time on facebook.)  She had recently become single, and like any other girl, was having trouble understanding what that meant to her.  While reaching out to to her, I was reminded of my own hardships with that transition phase, both the most recent and the time before that.

Despite the fact that I was ready to be single, doesn't mean I knew how to be single.  I spent such a long time in a relationship with the same guy.  We spent a lot of time building something together.  And now it was gone.  I switched between thinking it was everything to be with him, to thinking it was nothing that I couldn't regain.  It stops me from thinking what I have to build on my own.  

So I dedicate this to my cousin Vynie and my sister Ciara.  Who are two of the most amazing girls I know, and are the only people I am happy to say I am going through being single with.  I dedicate this to my cousin Margaret, who desperately wants a relationship, and I hope I can show her to create a good one.  I dedicate this to my cousin Grace, who at 11 is more sure of herself then I am.  I dedicate this to my single friends, the ones who are happy and the ones who are not.  May you be the independent women I know you are.  I dedicate this to my friends in relationships.  To the ones who have found their equals and the ones who could have done with being a little more choosy. I wish you would have been more choosy.

You will always be, my single ladies!