My Journey with the 10 of Spades
Man, let me tell you about the 10 of Spades. For the longest time, just seeing that card pop up in a spread would give me the chills. I mean, c’mon, we all know the drill, right? Ten swords sticking right into someone’s back, face down in the dirt. It screams total disaster, the absolute end, betrayal, hitting rock bottom. Every time I’d pull it, my stomach would just drop. I’d brace myself for the worst, bracing for some kind of epic downfall.
I started messing with Tarot years ago, not really seriously at first, just for fun, trying to figure things out for myself and some pals. And pretty quickly, that 10 of Spades became my personal bogeyman card. If I was doing a spread about a job situation, and it showed up, I’d just know it meant I was gonna get fired, or the project was gonna crash and burn, or something utterly devastating. If it was about relationships, oh boy, that was a sure sign of a terrible breakup, some massive argument, or just the end of everything good. I’d try to explain it away, shuffle again, but it always felt like it was staring right at me, laughing.
I remember one time, it must’ve been about seven or eight years back, I was in a really rough patch with a business venture. Everything was just going sideways. Money was tight, my partners were bickering, and I felt like I was running on fumes, just trying to keep the whole thing afloat. I decided to pull some cards, kinda hoping for some magic wisdom, some sign that things would turn around. What did I pull? You guessed it. The darn 10 of Spades. Front and center. I just sat there, staring at it, feeling absolutely defeated. “Well, that’s it then,” I thought. “It’s all over.” And honestly, that’s exactly how I felt in that moment – completely done, ready to just give up on the whole thing.
But here’s the kicker. That business actually did end. Not in a spectacular fiery crash, but it just fizzled out. We couldn’t make it work. And for a while, I was really down, feeling like the card had been a curse. But then, after a few weeks of wallowing, something started to shift. I wasn’t fighting anymore. I wasn’t stressing about invoices, or product launches, or partner disagreements. All that weight, all that pressure, it just wasn’t there anymore. It felt… lighter. Like a massive burden had finally been lifted from my shoulders.
That’s when I started to really think about it. I went back to my books, started reading up, not just on the usual doom-and-gloom interpretations, but trying to find different angles. I talked to other folks who’d been doing this a lot longer than me. And slowly, a different picture started to form in my head about this card.
It wasn’t just about the end. It was about an end. And with every end, there’s always a beginning, right? Like when you’re utterly exhausted, completely spent, you just gotta stop. And when you stop, you rest. And when you rest, you can pick yourself up again. It clicked for me that the 10 of Spades isn’t necessarily about something terrible happening to you, but about reaching a point where you simply cannot continue down a certain path. It’s the final straw, the ultimate sign that this particular chapter is unequivocally closed.
Here’s what I truly learned about it:
- It signals completeness, not just destruction. Think about it like this: you’ve gone through all the struggles, all the fights, all the mental anguish associated with the suit of Spades. You’ve hit the limit. There’s nowhere else to go. And that completion, while painful, also means the cycle is over.
- It’s often a necessary ending. That business I mentioned? Staying in it would have drained me completely. The 10 of Spades, in a weird way, was a confirmation that it was time to let go. It wasn’t actively causing the failure; it was reflecting the culmination of the struggle. It forced me to acknowledge that it was over, saving me from dragging it out even longer and suffering more.
- It opens the door for something new. This is the big one. When you’re at rock bottom, the only way is up. When a door slams shut, another one opens. It’s hard to see it when you’re lying there with those ten swords, but once you pick yourself up, you realize you’re in a new space, with new opportunities you couldn’t have seen or pursued before because you were still stuck in the old situation.
- It’s about relief after struggle. Yeah, it’s painful to get to that point. But once you’re there, there’s a strange sort of relief. The fight is over. You don’t have to keep pushing against a wall that won’t budge. It’s the peace that comes after intense suffering, the quiet after the storm.
So, is the 10 of Spades always bad? Man, absolutely not. It just ain’t that simple. I used to dread it, sure, but now, when it shows up, I see it differently. I still know it means a tough ending, some closure that might feel pretty rough at first. But I also know it’s a sign that I’ve reached the absolute end of something, and that’s a good thing, a freeing thing. It means I get to stop fighting, put down the burden, and finally, finally, turn the page to a whole new chapter. It’s not a curse; it’s a necessary transition, sometimes even a blessing in disguise, pushing you forward when you’re too stubborn or scared to move yourself.
It’s all about perspective, really. What looks like total devastation can actually be the exact moment you needed to finally break free and start building something better. I see it now not as a sign of irreversible doom, but as the final push, the ultimate release, leading straight into a fresh start. And that, my friends, is its true meaning for me.
