What my fortuneteller told me about love and marriage
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the
scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul—Invictus,
William Ernest Henley
I
have a single friend who just can’t get enough of fortunetellers. I told her
not to be too obsessed with it because no one could possibly know how tomorrow
would bring. But what the heck! When she asked me to go with her to see a tarot
card reader, I was just too curious to find out what she had to say about my
fortune (or misfortune).
Even
if I have encountered fortunetellers before, they still give me the creeps.
I’ve always had this notion that fortunetellers are some sort of magical
people, like gypsies wearing turbans and cloaks as they gaze into a crystal
ball. I thought their tarot cards would be so old and faded I couldn’t even
tell if the card of death suddenly turned up. I also feared they would give out
the loudest cachinnation, telling me about how doomed my life would be. I dread
having to sit there with all my hopes only for her to tell me I will not be
able to achieve my dreams.
But
that’s just my imagination, perhaps my paranoia. The fortuneteller we saw some
weeks ago didn’t even look like the fortuneteller character I made up in my
mind. Her tarot cards were not so old. But at least she had cards, unlike the
previous one I went to who had a laptop and who read my future through an excel
file, which was pretty cool actually.
Anyway,
the fortuneteller divided the session into three. The first old me about who I
was, which I already knew. She talked about my past, how I handled things, how
I worked with people, how I dealt with responsibility, and how I loved. It was
impressive, considering that she didn’t ask for my birthdate.
“When
you fell in love before, you gave it everything you’ve got,” she said. I could
have told her that myself. So I just nodded in agreement. But I couldn’t help
asking myself later, “Aren’t we all supposed to?”
The
second stage was predicting the future along with general advice about how to
deal with what was to come. It delighted me to hear it would be a good year for
me financially. Wouldn’t we all want to heart that? She also told me to slow
down so I wouldn’t burn myself out. I could have figured that one out for
myself. She didn’t need to look at her cards to see how tired I was. I did show
up there with a disturbing sore throat and bulging eye bags.
The
last stage, the question and answer, was the most fun. The subject would throw
a question at the fortuneteller, who would then ask the subject to draw the
number of cards, which she would read for the response.
My
friend could not help but ask the question she had been dying to ask since we
got there: “Will I ever get married?” To her relief, the answer was yes. As a
result, she bombarded the fortuneteller into telling her who she would marry.
But, sorry, all questions to be asked must not be answerable by a name.
To
save me time and some money. I did not ask the same question. Instead of asking if I would get married, I
asked her when I would get married. The
answer was in three years, give or take.
Although
I am working hard to accept a life of singlehood, I found myself sighing in
relief even if I knew the fortune could change the next time I asked the very
same question a week from now. At least when I am asked now when I will get
married, I can always tell people, “In three years, tops,” according to one
fortuneteller.
But
since I was allowed to ask more questions, I tried to inquire about the person
I would marry. Is he older or younger than me? “Older,” she said with a
straight face. Have I met him yet? “Yes, you have,” she responded. Say that
again?
Then
I wondered: if I have already met this person I am bound to marry, what’s
keeping us from being together, especially if we are to be wed in three years
time? The fortuneteller gave out a boisterous laugh, which made me feel like I
was too obsessed to discover the identity of my future spouse. When I asked
what was so funny, she told me my future husband was a wuss, or, in Tagalog, torpe. In fact, she said, he already thought of courting me but backed out
the last minute.
To
end the session, she told me I would have two to three kids and the firstborn
would be a male child. Cool.
The
funny thing was that when we were in the middle of the discussion about
marriage, she told me that sometimes it was better to remain single. I did not
know where that came from. But after talking about our single lives (yes, the
fortuneteller is single, too), I was surprised when she told me she was having
second thoughts about getting married after a certain incident with her fiancé,
which honestly gave me the urge to snatch the tarot cards from her and start
telling her about her own future.
Maybe
some people would say that for my future, as it was just recently told, to come
true, I must firmly believe. Maybe some people might scoff at the thought of
seeing a fortuneteller. Sure, as they would advise, I must take it all with a
grain of salt. Besides, taking it too seriously and living it as if it were
God’s plan might get me into trouble with my Catholic faith.
I
went with my friend to the fortuneteller in the spirit of fun, and nothing
else. After all, I stopped taking predictions seriously when I heard an expert
declare that former President Joseph Estrada would finish his term as
president. The same also predicted that year 2001 would be a romantic year for
me. Whatever.
But
hearing people, not just fortunetellers, tell us single people that there is
indeed an end to our single life always makes us feel like we could still be
part of mainstream society. The thought of a future husband brought a smile to
my face, even for just that brief moment.
But
there is absolutely no way of telling what the future holds for us because we
make our own future through the decisions we make every day, no matter how big
or small they are. What human beings should aspire for is to be happy with what
life brings us, whether it be a life of singlehood or marriage. Aren’t we,
after all, “the captains of our fate, the masters of our soul?”
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