Shuffling the Cards / Mescolare le Carte

In these last months, this is the type of energy I’m welcoming; the one that involves shuffling the cards. In Italian, we use this expression to describe change: a change of direction, putting everything back on the table and mixing it up again. Back to the drawing board.

It’s about shifting perspective when life feels like it’s hit a dead point or, simply, as in my case, when you feel comfortably numb …that child is grown, that dream is gone… So I shuffle, I mix, I refocus, I pivot, and I move away from that tempting sensation of settling. Of numbing.

I settled once. I numbed myself on the altar of “life by the manual” a collection of illusions and made-up scenarios.

So I stand up, I move away, I look again, and I come to terms with the fact that life is constant evolution (how cliché, yet how difficult to digest for some).

Life has its seasons, yes, but not everyone’s seasons last the same length. (And yes, my love for summer is beyond my astrological fire sign.)

I was always a restless kid. My imagination and dreams were always bigger than the platform I was living on and the spaces I could access.

It wasn’t my family’s fault; we had nothing at the time. Maybe it was that fire in my mind that always made me feel a little different.

I lived differently than most of my classmates. Sleeping in a bed in the corridor, head-to-toe with my sister, well into my early teens. Always carrying this sense that I needed to move. So I learned to shuffle. To refocus. I found the cards in the game I’m playing, and I try to use them wisely on my next turn.

I give, but I don’t forget to focus. I tried choosing “love a priori” and “trust without asking,” but there is no love without devotion and no trust without honesty.

So I learned I needed to play my cards more wisely. I wanted to run away from the mentality of fearing, and in doing so, I forgot I also needed to be wise (or at least half-wise:) ).

I’m at a point where I shouldn’t ignore or hide the cards I collected in my past; including my corporate-manager life, its approaches, and its lessons.

The cards I hold are not inherently good or bad. I collected them throughout my life, and they will serve me somehow, at some point. I shouldn’t shame some of them just because I was told, or heard, that certain cards are “worse” than others.

They’re still in my deck, even if some sit there like shadows.

So I reshuffle. I gather my cards, my lessons. I don’t hide them at the bottom of the deck. I let them manifest, and when needed, I keep them in sight.

So I reshuffle.