My First Reading

I have forgotten most of what I learned in my tarot class last year, and am in the process of teaching it to myself. The best way to do this, I believe, is to start with small readings of your own so that you can find a context for each of the cards, rather than arbitrarily read descriptions of them in books.
For my first reading, you might need to know a bit of background information.
For the first fourteen years of my life, I was a fit, athletic girl. I played tennis and swam - both competitively and though I wasn't half as good as some of the kids out there, I was just as equally active and fit. Then I put on weight during my board exams because I completely stopped exercising, and started eating like a pig while I studied. I continued to put on weight through my pre-university years although I did start losing it again towards the end, and by the middle of my first semester in college I was slim again.
In college, I got the attention of boys, I was called hot after a long time, I was even called beautiful. And then the whole manic episode thing happened and I got put on medication that increased my appetite and I was depressed so my appetite was doubly increased and by the end of 2010 I weighed 200 pounds.
Right now I am in the process of losing that weight and I am fighting hard to do it. I have lost some, but its happening gradually - very, very gradually. So gradually, in fact, that I am starting to wonder whether its ever going to completely happen or not. So today I asked the cards.
I am only doing this reading with the Major Arcana cards, because I am starting re-learning with those first. I remember them a little bit better than I remember the suits. So here is my first reading. Also, I am doing a cross reading i.e. four cards arranged in a cross: one for where you are, one for where you will end up, one for what you should do and one for what you shouldn't do.

Question: Will I lose weight and become beautiful in the eyes of the world?
Cross reading
Where I am: Strength
My future: Wheel of Fortune
What I should do: The Lovers
What I should avoid: Death (reversed)

Reading: Right now I am controlling my lifestyle, my food cravings, my laziness and my general ‘fat’ mentality. This will lead to a dramatic change in my life - or perhaps, my outlook on life - and very soon things are going to move quickly and in the right direction. Perhaps I will lose weight fast. Perhaps my newly acquired good health will make me a happier, better functioning human being. Perhaps, in turn, this newly acquired happiness will give me the confidence to make new friends. Maybe I will go from being the drab, lonely girl to the girl that has good friends, some admirers and is happy and comfortable within her own skin. Perhaps I will be what I yearn to - and was probably always meant to be - a happy, well-adjusted, loved and accepted young woman. However, I should not resist the changes I am trying to make because I am lazy or get discouraged with slow-to-show results and decide to give up. I shouldn’t stay stuck in my old ways and I definitely shouldn’t allow myself to stray from my goal. My goal right now is health and not ‘famed beauty’ and ‘complete control over the heard of every man on earth’. I need to keep my expectations realistic and this will help me avoid stagnation (and discouragement) better. I should, however, maintain balance in my mind and my habits, and keep in touch with my inner self. I shouldn’t obsess with superficial things, like getting back at people who called me ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’, and I definitely should not let negative influences become my primary drive to achieve my goal. I need to do this for me, because it makes me happy, not because I want to use this to make someone else feel bad. I should embrace the love and compassion of the people that have been good enough to give it to me in even my darkest hour and use that as fuel to become better, rather and try and achieve this goal to become ‘better’ for the sake of demeaning or ridiculing those whose love and compassion I do not have. I should be positive and right now, my happiness is what comes first.

I hope that eventually someone will read this blog and comment on my reading. It is very basic right now, I know, and I have a long way to go before I understand the cards well enough, but I think I am going in the right direction.