My horoscope today:
You will have to hold things together, even if you are a little emotionally fragile. Social events and activities that will help you bring about change will lead to some great friendships. Be an innovative and imaginative leader.
On another note, my weekly horoscope from The Tiger, my college newspaper, told me to lay off the mexican food. Which I had Friday, Saturday, Tuesday, and today.
Uh oh.
Today my horoscope said,
“Stop procrastinating. Travel is in the stars or picking up information or learning something new, so don’t wait for things to come to you. Actively pursue your dreams, hopes and wishes.”
I sat on the phone last night with my West Coast Best Friend, listening to her woes about getting attached too easily to this guy, being disappointed too quickly by another.
“You need to toughen up,” I told her.
I started thinking about how that can really change a person. The way you respond, to the little things, to the let downs, to the heartbreaks. I think I always knew, intrinsically, that a reaction is everything, that the way we take things defines us. I guess I never really looked at the way it defines me.
When my heart hurts, I keep quiet. I keep to myself.
Sometimes that hurt benefits Banana Republic’s stock.
When I’m disappointed or reeling about something, I keep it in unless pressed. But when pried, when I do tell [all], sometimes I’m too weary about the response. As though I can tell the person sitting beside me, the person asking, wanting to hear, will spill a chemical set to make me cringe. It’s not as though I don’t want to hear what they have to say, it’s that I know what they have to say is not comforting to me. It’s as thought the judgment I’m so afraid of is the elephant in the room.
Well, it’s not like y’all were ever dating.
You’re so young. I didn’t know who I was when I was your age.
You need to get over it.
All of those things aren’t what need to be said. And the getting over it? A whole heck of a lot easier said than done. That’s between a person and their own mind, their own heart. That’s not the advice to be given.
He never deserved you in the first place.
However true, it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow that he, in the end, didn’t want you.
I listened on the phone last night, half with my ear pressed against the hand-sized piece of plastic, half concentrated on my own thoughts. I balanced a, “I’ll never find someone. Why can’t I just meet – for once – a great guy.. who loves me?” with a, “I think, honestly, you need to love yourself first. You need to love the girl I love, the one that all your other friends love.” I sat through the, “Why can’t I be with a guy who is friends with all my friends and who with we can have all these inside jokes and be a big group and have fun? Why can’t I meet a guy who for once.. doesn’t disappoint?”
And as much as I wanted to say – and didn’t – all I could think was, “Why can’t I just meet a guy that for once, really likes me? And then I’ll atleast have an option.”
Why yes, yes I did.
My horoscope guide has told me that the year 2007 is one in which I must be true to myself. Is it possible that people are not intuitively true to themselves? Are we all masking something?
“I mean there’s things I’m embarrassed about, but I don’t think I’m ever ashamed of anything just because my family tried to teach me, when I was young, that I should never be upset or feel bad about the decisions I make, in my life, and that you learn from them and you move on. So I don’t think I can honestly say that I’m ashamed on something. I’ve been embarrassed about certain things, in my life, but never ashamed. We’re all human, you know! We make mistakes, but we learn from them.”
tiffany amber thiessen.
I was watching a movie yesterday morning.. getting ready for my oh-so-nearly-perfect day. I heard a quote in it and I just thought.. love it. What is it about quotes that can be so.. endearing? I think it’s funny. Truly. I hear it. I like it. I keep it. I repeat it. Yep, that’s pretty much the way it goes. But why?
I’m starting to wonder why it is (or more so beginning to admit) that I think very often about the ironies in the parallels of life. Does what we see on television sometimes mock what we should be seeing in our own lives? Is it just coincidence when we pick up a book and it strikes something way too close to home. My 2007 Astrology Guide (oh yea.. I’ve got one) is sometimes frightening. The roommate and I have been reading a lot of it over the past week.. and getting a kick out of it at the same time. Is it something worth listening to.. the predictions and the chance that while we know our lives are being written out by a masterful playwright, maybe he’s dropping hints for us in the meantime? Breadcrumbs. I mean, it makes sense. Doesn’t it? He too is who is writing everything we see and touch. So why is it so difficult to digest that possibility?
“We could of hit this one out of the park, you and I. It was there, I know it. That can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars over the fence, World Series kind of love.” Diane Barrows, It Takes Two.
My horoscope is no lullaby. Thanks to msn.com, I think I’ll be investing in a little something called self-indulgence. I think I’ll disappear for a few hours later today. I think I’ll sort something out with a friend. I might avoid the people that mean the most to me because meaning a lot means having control. And on top of that, I think I’ll consider why in the world I wouldn’t think of moving away.. it might be a lot easier than I could ever imagine.
Everyone needs to be loved, Kristin, no one can deny that… Yet this should not be your only objective in life. It’s not the end of the world if your charms fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes) every once in a while. Today you may be tempted to be a little less ‘charming’ and seductive with the people around you, and some may even say you’re not acting like your usual self. Ignore them and realize that a little self-indulgence from time to time never hurt anyone.
I was thinking yesterday. Well.. thinking aloud.. in conversation. And I came to something. I was thinking about a book I read.. and how my love of books.. and those I choose to engage in.. are responsible for sparking both hope and fear in me. I was thinking about certain books that tell you to wait around for Mr. Right (my Mr. Beat) until he’s ready.. because he will eventually be ready.. are what we can blame for being the root of all evil because they can, in most realistic cases, be completely.. and utterly.. wrong.
My horoscope today jolted my momentum by saying: You’ll find it hard to keep your thoughts to yourself.
Just try me.
Thinking aloud about my wishes and dreams and icky feelings has not yet aided and abetted me.. thus leading me to begin a book that starts as follows.. “When I was twelve, a fortune teller told me that my one true love would die young and leave me all alone.. Everyone said she was a fraud, that she was just making it up.. I’d really like to know why the hell a person would make up a thing like that.” (Tiffanie DeBartolo, God-Shaped Hole.)
Do you ever get that feeling? That feeling that you’re going to die young? That feeling that something’s missing? That feeling that all is right? That feeling of complete togetherness and compatibility? That feeling of pain? Do you ever get that feeling that you’re incomplete? Do you ever get scared?
“What are you afraid of?” I said.. “You know, what scares you? Spiders, heights, girlfriends, small spaces, commitment. What?”
“Are you okay?”
I pretended I didn’t understand so he’d say it again.
“Are you okay?” he repeated. “You seem edgy..”
“I don’t know,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m just afraid this is going to end.” I couldn’t believe I was telling him what I really felt. I rarely told people what I really felt. Especially boys.
“Don’t waste your time with fear,” Jacob said calmly. “Fear won’t keep you safe from being hurt.”
“It could,” I said.
“I don’t think so.”
“What if you’re scheduled to fly to Japan and at the last minute you chicken out, then the plane you were supposed to be on explodes into a ball of fire over the ocean?”
“You can’t think like that. That’s not living.”
“Everyone’s afraid of something,” I said..
“Tell me what you’re afraid of,” Jacob said.
Shit, I thought, this could take all day. My life was ruled by my fears.
“I’m afraid of everything. Fear of being alone, fear of being hurt, fear of being made a fool of, fear of failure.. Still, I think all my fears bleed from one big one..”
“I’m tempted to tell you that you think too much, but I’m not really one to talk,” Jacob said. “Henry Miller wrote something about fear making you fearless. It’s a very powerful emotion. Use it to get what you want. I mean if it’s going to rule our life, it might as well rule you to freedom, right?”
“But no matter what, it won’t make you immortal. It can’t save you from the inevitable end.”
“Nothing can save you from the inevitable end..”
I asked Jacob if he believed in God. My mother always told me it was rude to ask people their views on politics or religion..
“Not in the conventional sense.. I think we are God. We all have that inside of us. And I believe we go on after we’ve turned to dust. Our souls, I mean.”
“I wish I believed that. To me, it’s highly improbable. In my soul, there’s just a big hole where God’s supposed to be.”
“That has nothing to do with God. The hole, that is. Everyone feels that void. Everyone who has the balls to look inside themselves, anyway. It’s what life’s all about.. A search. We’re all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hole in our souls. Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. A lot of people even use the concept of God itself. I could go on and on. I used to know a girl who used shoes. She had over two-hundred pairs. But it’s all the same thing, really. People, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows.”
Jacob’s words hit me deep in the gut. I could have never articulated it like he did, but I guess I didn’t have to. What he said was exactly how I felt sometimes: like a bottomless pit.
“Jacob,” I said, “do you think there’s anything in life that can fill up the hole? And not only fill it up, but keep it filled?”
“That’s the real trick, isn’t it?” he said incisively. “It’s easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you’re left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.”
I hadn’t been arid since I set eyes on [him].
God-Shaped Hole by Tiffanie DeBartolo.
I’m starting to think life is just a myriad of disillusionment- an endless string of hopes and wishes and.. and expectations (falsehoods) tied together like construction paper cutouts ready to be hung across a classroom or around a Christmas tree. Surrounded by kids or creating a “perfect” holiday setting is where these plays are set.
And the ironic iconic horoscope reads..
You may be a little emotional, but, when it comes right down to it, things will unfold in your favor. You can develop a plan or branch out in a new direction that will allow you greater creative freedom.
Okay okay okay. Maybe the horoscope craze has got to go. But I’d just be demure to ignore the sheer entertainment it provides. Today, my horoscope, is this: Stop procrastinating when you have so much going for you. Talk about your plans and you will stir up interest. Love is on the rise.
I’ve kind of reentered that phase of meek/mock depression I so embodied a mere 5 months ago. (Everything is measured in months.) I hit a plateau last night where I was sitting next to a guy I used to adore and still greatly respect, and next to someone I’ve only known a few months, talking about people and situations and becoming the epitome of confused about life. I mean, seriously. Seriously. Why is it so hard?
I never thought I’d be here.
I never thought I’d be resolved. (Which I’m not.)
I never thought I’d be indifferent. (While I still wish for indifference.)
I’ve kind of been going through a lot lately. Alone. And it’s not easy. Facing the truth is not easy. Realizations, revelations, recognitions.. all hard. Why did I think it wasn’t going to be hard? I guess I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d be 22. Hence the lack of planning ahead. I never thought I’d be a college graduate. Hence the lack of direction. I never thought a lot of things existed in my future. And I never thought anyone would understand me saying this.
“Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can’t see.” The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
And.. it always comes back to my horoscope and my love of it. But, lately, it seems as though I’ve been seeking out advice everywhere.. even in the most unlikely places, in the most unlikely of people.
Here is my horoscope for today: There will be no time for you to rest. An opportunity is looking you in the face and, if you don’t take advantage of it, you may always regret it.
I feel like, over the course of the past four months, everything I’ve read and seen and felt has been coming back to those same responses: something is staring you in the face, open your eyes, don’t close any doors. But, I mean, It’s not like everything I want, everything I imagine and dream, is left up to me to pursue. I know that kind of response seems inaccurate and to derive from ignorance.. but I fail to see that. I think that, instead, caution is the word of the day.
Now, does my horoscope know me better than I know myself?
