Ten of wands, and the tiredness sleep does not touch

FRIDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER

friday, and whatever you have been carrying all week is at its heaviest now, which makes this the one honest hour of the seven.

the ten of wands is load. not crisis, load, and load is much harder to get help with because nothing about it is dramatic enough to mention. it is the accumulation of things that are each individually fine.

the particular trap in it is that competence attracts weight. you are good at handling things, so things get handed to you, and at no point did anybody make a decision to load you up. it happened one reasonable request at a time over about fifteen years.

which is why nobody is going to take anything off you. they cannot see the stack. the tiredness that sleep does not touch is often this, and it is worth having looked at if it goes on, but it very rarely lifts on its own without something being put down on purpose. one thing. today.

what is worth leaning into today: the word no, used once today with no reason attached to it. reasons invite negotiation.

what is worth staying away from: the audit of whether you are entitled to be this tired. you are this tired. the entitlement question only adds to the load.

my advice for today: name one thing you will stop doing and tell one person you are stopping it. saying it out loud is what keeps it from quietly reappearing on the list next week.

what is the one thing you would put down if you were allowed to. reply and tell me, and let that be the first time it has been said anywhere.

/ a story

a situation that comes up week after week

a woman is doing the work of about three people and doing it well, and when somebody suggests she stop doing a piece of it, she finds a reason why that particular piece cannot be stopped. there is always a reason, and the reason is always true.

the eight of wands. it carries the speed at which things arrive. what it means here is that the load itself is survivable, and the absence of any gap between one thing and the next is what makes it feel otherwise, and a gap can be made without anything being taken away.

the empress. it carries being the source everybody draws from. what it means here is that a source nobody refills stops being generous and becomes dutiful, and the people around her feel that difference long before she has a name for it.

the nine of wands. it carries going on after you are done. what it means here is that she has a reserve tank, and she has been running on it long enough to mistake it for the main one, and that tank is where the flat, joyless version of her competence comes from.

the reason it is frightening. being the capable one is a place in a family and at work as much as it is a set of tasks, so putting something down feels like resigning from who she is rather than from what she does. the people who love her would take her tired and present over efficient and absent, and a good many of them have been waiting years for a chance to say so.

reply and tell me what is on your stack. no tidying it up for me, the unedited list is the interesting one.