“Your heart wants one thing in your life right this very minute, but your head knows that it might not happen for a while. The battle between your impatient side and your pragmatic side will rage on today, with little (if any) resolution. This tension could cause you to lash out unusually at people who try to push your buttons. You will probably tell yourself it serves them right for trying to get you riled up, but in the end if you add to the animosity you aren’t doing yourself any favors.”
—-Yahoo horoscope, Gemini, 8/10/12
I don’t read horoscopes every day. I’m not somebody who believes in them (exactly.)
I mean, logically-speaking, of course I don’t believe in them! You can’t look at the stars or the cycles of the moon or any such thing and predict what will happen in somebody’s life. I know that.
A whimsical side of me might (I admit) want to believe there might possibly be some tiny grain of truth to astrology – but the logical side of me just can’t truly go there. For one thing, I can’t escape the fact that my mom and my brother share my sun sign (Gemini) – and there’s just no way, no matter how you stretch it, that the same horoscope can apply to all three of us at the same time (believe me, I pondered/evaluated this more than once growing up!)
So no…I don’t believe in astrology. If I’m reading something that contains my horoscope, I confess to reading it – for fun. But not to draw deep meaning or real spiritual guidance.
But I will admit to seeking it out once in a while – most especially when I have “issues.” Not because I really think there are answers to be found. It’s more that there’s just something so appealing, so comforting, in thinking (even for a second) that you can read something and there’ll be some insight, some answer, some road to take that will guide you to where you want to be. (If only!!) So I do occasionally indulge in that little wish for the two seconds it takes me to read a horoscope – and then I shrug and move on.
Most of the time, anyway! Today’s horoscope was a little weird.
Some background: the last two weeks have been so crazy. A whirlwind really, of high highs and low lows. Wonderful, amazing gifts…and unexpected, obnoxious impediments. Everything’s been either great (I mean, FRESHLY PRESSED!!!!) or really, really lousy (particularly in the realization that there will be some unexpected impediments to finalizing my divorce that I wasn’t expecting.) Up and down and up and down and up and down.
So I made two decisions last night (during my seventh [or so] straight night of insomnia): I need to stop worrying about things I can’t do anything about, and concentrate on being grateful for the things I have that are great in my life.
Like my kids – who I spent today baking cookies with and playing superheroes with, and otherwise having tons of fun with. Who can be seriously down with such great, affectionate, awesome little people to hang out with??
And my writing/blogging. My freelancing stuff is going really well at the moment. (And let’s not forget Freshly Pressed!!!!)
And my not-quite-officially-ex-husband…I have to be grateful for him too. When I think of him, it occurs to me that perhaps rather than cursing the state of Ohio (as I’ve been doing for the last several days) I should (in a way) be thanking it.
Prior to our recent legal annoying-ness, he and I had gotten to the point where we felt like we’d built, post-marriage, a really solid friendship. We’ve actually discussed the possibility that this (where we are: friends and co-parents) is the place we were sort of “meant” to occupy in each other’s lives all along – and that the real problem, at base, was in trying to turn that friendship into something more. And I have to say, these annoyances with the legal process have completely cemented our feelings in this! We are so utterly on the same page with how much we resent these obstacles that any shadows of doubts that might have been lingering in regard to where we are in our relationship/friendship/co-parenting have been completely obliterated! How can I not be grateful for that? I mean, yes: now we have annoying hurdles to get around – hurdles that will require even more annoying lawyer fees that we can’t afford and had hoped to avoid. But I’d so much rather be in the position I’m in – which is about working with him to navigate the system to work for us. How much worse would it be if I were battling HIM? How much worse for the kids, and just everything?
So anyway, I looked at my horoscope on Yahoo today – and it was what I’ve quoted above. Which struck me as sort of weird, given how I feel at the moment, and in regard to what’s going on with me in regard to this divorce stuff.
Now, I realize that I’m probably only reading it the way I am (seeing what I’m seeing in it) BECAUSE of what’s going on with me…but seriously, it seems like it could have been written for me! Funny.
And while I had already done some good thinking in my insomniac state of the previous night, I have to say, I did more when I read this – and it helped me.
And it occurred to me that maybe that’s the reason horoscopes endure, and why we (some of us) continue to read them: they give us an opportunity, within the swirl and chaos that is life, to think a tiny bit philosophically, for at least a few seconds.
I think I read horoscopes for the the same reason I like fortune cookies. Or the little quotations you find on teabag strings (I like the Yogi brand herbal teas…for taste, but also for the quotes!) It’s the same reason why sometimes I’ll spend five minutes reading through racks of inspirational greeting cards. I found a really great set of these on a little spinner at the museum store of the National Museum of Women in the Arts when I went there, for example. They were all really nice – but the one I particularly remember was one by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” I don’t always manage to live life from that perspective – but I find that I’m happier when I do (so, something to aspire to…and worth pondering now and again.)
I like those little moments that make you think…just for a second. I like the little doors they can sometimes give you toward different ways of thinking.
