A recent conversation with some friends involved the question of what to call the person one lives with.
"If I say my daughter's partner people think she is a lesbian," said one man. "Partner implies a gay relationship."
"I prefer the ambiguity of the term partner," said another man. "Leave them to wonder."
"What about significant other," I said.
That was the preferred term that was most generally agreed upon.
So if I am not in a relationship, does that make me insignificant?
Another tarot card reading from Mystic Games tells me more of what I don't want to hear but know will be there.
What surrounds you?
The Hanged Man
You are stuck in a dilemma. You are suspended between the past and the future and a new direction for your life is in the making. You need to look at things from a new perspective in order to make necessary changes. Making a clean break with the past will help you to become more spiritually attuned. Take your time and make the right decisions about where you truly want your life to go.General Description
Superficially seen, primarily means that we are stuck and in a dilemma. However, with more thorough consideration we can see that in the external immobility there is a forced repose, as well as the necessity and opportunity to achieve a transformed view of the world and change one's life. The passivity to which we are condemned in such phases is at best illustrated with the image of an illness, which is often actually indicated by this card. C. G. Jung says of the experience that the Hanged Man expresses: "To hang can ( ... ) even be a positively seen 'hanging on', which on the one hand means apparently insurmountable difficulties, yet on the other hand presents that unique situation that requires the greatest effort, and therefore calls the entire person into action.
Where it leads?
Death
You will be faced with a parting, a letting go, or the end of something. This may be a long wished for and liberating ending, or a painful experience. Regardless, it will represent a natural end. It will be time to let go of something, be it a person or situation. Do not deny yourself the natural deep experience of parting and the related life-accepting experiences. This will help prepare you for new things which will follow.General Description
Death means parting, the great letting go, the end. It then also prepares the way for the new, for that which is to come. However, the card itself first presents us with the end. This can be positive when it relates to a long wished for, liberating ending, yet it is also natural that we have our most painful experiences with the theme of this card. In contrast to the 10 of Swords, which indicates the random and thereby premature ending, this card always stands for the natural end. This means that it is time to let go of something. The Death card is unjustly one of the most feared. The eternal embellishers, who do not understand it, read the card only to be the proclamation of something new and want to deny us the deep experience of parting and the related life-accepting experiences. "We have separated living from dying and the interval between them is fear" says Krishnamurti, and: "You cannot live without dying."
My conclusions
What if I refuse to let it die?
"The deep experience of parting and the related life-accepting experiences," is how the author of these cards explains this situation. If I refuse to accept the parting and the related life-accepting then what do I become? What am I becoming?
The crone
My inner crone is growing silently and secretly and when the time is ripe it will be revealed. I can never leave the place I so desperately wanted him to be so I will take root here and embrace my inner crone until I die an insignificant other to the many whose lives I have so lightly touched.
No, I am not hopeless. I am not hopeful either. I coast in neutral. Nor is there anything that needs fixing about my perspective. It is different from most but that doesn't make it wrong.
I seek peace in my insignificance; deference to my indifference.
And ummmm.... what about "room-mate"? That's a good title/label. Talk about leave 'em wondering!