The number 5 represents that added something that brings the situation out of balance again.  It represents the struggle and challenge of inner and outer growth.  Cups are associated with emotions, love, pleasure in life; matters pertaining to the unconscious, intuition and the inner planes, and the element of water.   This card often symbolizes the need to let go of our emotional connection to something that has passed out of our lives. 

Gail Fairfield:  You are feeling challenged on a psychic or intuitive plane.  You may be experiencing something on the psychic level that is making your feel uneasy.  You are making adjustments in the ways you use your intuition.  You could also be going through some private emotional adjustments.

I need to release the past "me", the potential "me's" that never were able to be born and thrive.  I have often found myself contemplating what I might have been if I had grown up in a different environment.  Maybe without the flaw and scars my upbringing gave me I would have been more successful or achieved greater things.  Maybe I would have been "somebody".  These thoughts can plague me and I will worry them the way one will worry a loose tooth.  Not necessarily a productive venture but certainly a diverting one. 

Of course the real question here is not what did I lose as a result of the rather dysfunctional upbringing I had, but how amazing it is that I've reached the level of success I have.  I did not become a teen mother.  I did not become a drop out or an addict.  I did not marry young and have children as a way to make myself feel loved and needed.  Instead I took on all doubters and shouted at the top of my lungs - "well, what do you think now?!!"  Sometimes the best way to motivate me to achieve a goal is to imply that I can't do it.  That just gets my competitive streak in gear.

Of course defiance will only take one so far.  The rest has to come from within ourselves.  Looking at the image on the Collective Spirit 5 of Cups what struck me is that one seed has been selected to receive water.  Whether this is deliberate or not is irrelevant; that seed was blessed above the others.  In some ways it is like conception itself.  Why was that specific sperm permitted or chosen to fertilize the egg?  Why was that specific egg released at that time?  Who knows.  It's questions like that which give me hope there is some sort of divine power in the Universe.  For things like that to be completely random is possible, but I prefer to add a touch of magic in my life.

Anyway, back to the 5 of Cups.  Instead of mourning what I could have been (like Marlon Brando's character in On the Waterfront), I should be celebrating what I have accomplished and what I have in my life.  I am truly blessed.  I have an absolutely fabulous husband, a loving family, wonderful and supportive friends.  I have a brain that is always seeking answers and a body that work relatively well (although it sometimes needs a good kick or two to get started).  Life is good.  I don't need to lose myself in mourning for yesterday; I need to glory in the possibilities of tomorrow.