Written in the Cards: A Daughter's Journey

Abstract

Written in The Cards: A Daughter’s Journey is a book-length memoir that explores what it means to try to face generational traumas head-on in an attempt to break the cycle before it takes over. When a pregnancy scare paired with persistent baby dreams makes the narrator realize she’d not strayed as far as she’d hoped from the generational cycles that had plagued the women in her family before her, she turns to the only thing that can give her answers in ways she’ll understand: tarot. Broken up into four sections mirroring a customized three-card spread, Present, Past: Primary Threads, Past: Secondary Threads, and Future, the narrator reevaluates the areas of her life that seem to perpetuate the cycles–partners, single moms, living ghosts, demanding expectations, and living situations–to see if they might hold the key to breaking the generational trauma cycle before she’s in too deep.