Immigration is easy. Acculturation is hard.

(I’d add enslaved people here, too.)

Yesterday, I was watching this op-ed video from The New York Times, about the African migrant crisis taking place in northern Africa and the Mediterranean. It was galling and eye-opening, to see people, my people, on a small little inflatable raft leaving the coast of Libya for Italy. This video is about 15 minutes long–and you should watch it, even though content warning–you will see people (needlessly) drown, antagonized, and beaten.

World immigration patterns can be easily lead back to how Europe and America have had their little grubby hands in people’s governments, installed dictators, and caused political and social upheaval–and that’s just the post-colonial part of history. 

What’s happening on America’s southern border is mostly America’s fault. Our involvement in Central American affairs has caused a vicious boomerang effect of displacement. The same can be said for what’s gone on in sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. The same can be said for what’s gone on in Haiti.

And that’s why I’m here in America now, because my parents were escaping some unlivable conditions as medical professionals. They were part of a brain drain in the 1970s that Ghana has yet to recover from. In that video, there was a Ghanaian miner talking about his experience of being on that raft–it was harrowing to listen his story and the story of other sub-Saharan Africans.

Seeing this video reminded me of the cost of immigration–not only for those who immigrate, but for their children as well.

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I’ve been of the mind since I came down here to Florida for grad school and wrote about my own family’s experiences of living in the States that basically, it wasn’t worth leaving Ghana to live here. It was out of the frying pan of one post-colonial shit show into another much longer post-colonial shit show–although it was more of a slow grind which took years to manifest.

A lot of what my family went through, I still sometimes think it may not have been as bad in Ghana. We lost the familial and cultural ties that would have at least protected me and my brother from a man slowly losing his grip on reality. We would have had my mom’s mom, our aunts and uncles, our cousins, and all the other extended relatives that we don’t really have now. My mom has said that being in America made my father’s mental health issues more profound.

But then I think about all the people willing to risk their lives to leave countries like Ghana and Guatemala. They aren’t stupid to try to leave so they can actually have some semblance of a life. My parents weren’t stupid or foolhardy to leave Ghana to try to make it here. It just was that the options, as they were then as they are now, were pretty bleak–and even bleaker now.

My parents immigrated quite easily because they were medical professionals and my dad served in the Air Force. But you’ll never have someone’s green card waiting for them at the airport like my mom’s was waiting for her. That brief era of openness is over.

---

This morning, after waking up from a dream about my former youth group pastor and his now ex-wife, along with my former pastor and his wife (by the way, it was a nice dream), I realized that my lack of thriving here or dreams realized right now is tied to so many things outside of my control.

Yes, there’s the racism and the sexism–things I wasn’t really brought up to think that they affect me personally, but clearly they do.

But it’s also not being American enough and at the same time, knowing that this fish-of-water experience is very American. That’s a big thrust of the memoir I wrote in grad school. 

So why the dream about my old church? I thought how much I was left out of social situations as a teen because of my parents–mainly my mother–being so controlling about my whereabouts. And to be a teenager in America is very much about freedom and hanging out with your friends.

When I was in my 30s, I went back home one Christmas and I was hanging out with another friend who told me about how she and other friends of ours were always hanging out at this lake that I had only been to once. It’s mainly because I lived on the other side of town and didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 18. But it was apparently a big part of their social experience that I didn’t get to be a part of–AND I had only hear about it almost two decades later.

Yes, there’s the pain of having missed out on some social gatherings. There’s also the social education I feel like I missed. There was a lot of American naturalization and socialization that I just did not get as a Black American woman. And that knowledge gap has been costly.

I’m pretty sure I have the mind and heart of a Ghanaian, but if I went to Ghana, I’d be seen as American.

And that’s not just a Ghanaian phenomenon, by the way. 

Last month, I was interviewing this British man who I couldn’t quite place his accent because it almost sounded Australian. But he had been here for about 14 years. He said that when he goes back to the UK, people say he sounds too American.

It’s like what my second thesis advisor said–when you leave the land, the land will forget you.

---

So America is my land. But unless I have a family of my own here, I will probably never have deep roots here. And I believe that’s why I lament when people leave my life, because I’ve had to construct my own sense of cultural identity and place without the land that has already forgotten me–a land that really never knew me–with every word I would say in Ghana being some shibboleth of betrayal.

I don’t have any lasting traditions of my own, or familial memories of what we do–except one (highly appropriate for this time of year) where my mother would drive me and my brother around neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights.

Other people have been better at this creating roots and traditions in a new land, but I’m terrible at it, mainly because so much of it was centered around church and Christian culture (and thus, white American culture) . So leaving that has made me even more rootless.

It just seems that whomever I meet now, it will never be like having a true family of origin, like my grandmother, like my extended family (which is quite large just on my mom’s side).

To them, like to the friends who were in my church’s youth group, I’m auxiliary. I’m not a part of their base. I’m not foundational. And I never will be.

---

I’ve had a real nasty, persistent naivete about people, especially white people. And it means that I act a little too recklessly (and that’s partly due to not really having a foundation or homebase). But grad school was a rude and needed awakening to the perniciousness of whiteness.

It was like I had lived with a dormant fungal infection that bloomed when I moved to a different part of the country. It was an education my dad was trying to give me, through little talks we had about his growing up and his life in America. But because it was so wrapped up in bitterness (which now, I can almost not blame him for), I couldn’t really understand it until it basically made my grad school experience a waking nightmare.

A lot of that, again, was tied up in the church, so by leaving that behind, white supremacy was on full display, and the inherent unfairness and hypocrisy that is its bedrock. I got hit in the head with it many times.

Honestly, it’s partly why I’m in this dump of a house with this semi-retiree shut-in. But when I look at the big picture of where my life is situated–the deep shame I’ve felt for my lack of success is completely unfounded (although sadly, it’s hard to let go of).

Instead, I should be proud of myself.

My story is one of resilience despite ridiculously shitty odds, unfathomable obstacles, and just good ole American fuckery.

It’s not about what I didn’t get or didn’t do. It’s about the alchemy I used to get where I am today despite all of the shit that was in my way.

If I can go back in time to change things, there’s not much I could do to navigate my lifeboat in another direction. Maybe I would have had a little less suffering, but not much. Essentially, I would have to have had different parents and have been born at a different time and under different circumstances. But then, I wouldn’t be me. 

So, at the not-so-tender age of 41, I give up.

I don’t care if I don’t fit in here in the U.S.–or anywhere, really. Humanity is quite tribal, and yet my own parents come from two different ethnic groups with two separate languages, two different naming (of children) systems.

I’ve always been out of place…

As I’ve grown older, I’ve strived to fit in with myself–with all the sensitivities, the anxieties, the rages, the passions, the penchants, the peculiarities…in my own private country, population of one.

So now, I’m most always concerned if I am betraying myself. I want to stick up for myself more because at least I can rely on my own loyalties.

---

So what can I do, in such a fractured world that doesn’t really want me to succeed, with the clipped and edited lineage that I have? As I have always done–the best that I can. If I am not doing my best, that’s really the only way that I have failed.

Although I’ve definitely tried too hard, there’s some relief to know that right down to my cells, I’m divided. This is not supposed to be easy just because I had smart parents, that I am smart myself, that I care about people, that I really try not to be an asshole.

I have essentially thrived in a hostile landscape.

Even though I’ve “given up”,  I haven’t given up on living.

I want to not only be happy, but I want to remain sane and safe. I want to continue to take good care of myself in the best way that I can.

Maybe it’s impossible to find roots anywhere, to have my own lasting community with anyone. But I still have to try because I’m a human being. This is what we do.

I’ve had a lot of barriers and constraints, and yet I’ve thought I was a lot more free than I was. And that’s important because I’ve been so hard on myself because I know what I am capable of–but I’ve never really been a full place of freedom and expansion to be that person.

And, I may not ever experience that seemingly mythical place of true, open space to flourish. And, that’s rough to hear. It’s tough for me to fully accept. I’m a relentless fighter, and I know that’s what’s kept me alive.

But there’s some grace in this acceptance. It means I can stop putting pressure on myself to be this superhuman. 

Now, it’s time to figure out, within this cramped space, who I’m supposed to be, who I already am.

My little childlike heart doesn’t like to hear it but…life is unfair and hard and cruel. But, because it is also brief, you’ve got to try to make a life for yourself with whatever you have, with the shitty hand you were dealt…as you sit with people who know the game better than you and with the cheaters.

I’ve been really mad at myself for not knowing how to play the game, but I’ve done all I can to learn. My parents, even in their narcissism, did the best they could to teach me, but the way Ghanaian society is, it’s never just up to the parents to do that, to offer guidance, love, and support. So they were doing their part without the orchestra of the rest of the family to support us. And truly, nuclear families are really just a recent American construction, but they’ve always been failed states. Family has never just been about parents and their children.

And, I’m pretty sure if my parents knew how complicated America was, especially for Black people, they’d be better at conveying that knowledge and wisdom to me. But they were trying to figure it out for themselves and used church as a crutch to get through. It kinda worked, kinda didn’t. I can definitely hold them accountable for being narcissists, but nothing else. America is a hostile place to live if you’re not a rich white cis straight male. 

So the people trying to escape Central America and Africa are just like the people who escaped Nazi Germany and famine-stricken Ireland (which I would blame the UK for)–just all trying to live a better life in hopefully a better place. I’m still not sure if America is that better place for me, but I really am done with blaming myself for being “too much” and “not enough” in a such a capricious place.

I mean look at who is POTUS right now, along with his whole corrupt family. I’m definitely not the problem.

---

I remember hearing when I was 18 or so about how being 40, you learn about how much you don’t know. And I can attest to this truism. I know so little.

But the more I learn about myself and the world I live in, the more freedom I have to be myself, even when there’s poverty constantly nipping at my heels or as I try to withstand existential loneliness’ daily campaign to try to take me out.

There’s some strange comfort to know that it’s not supposed to work out the way I had it in my head, that these “failures” were baked into the cultural fabric of American society.

It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be horrifying. It’s supposed to be dehumanizing and demoralizing. 

You’re not crazy–the system is.

But when you’re an immigrant to America, that’s the exact opposite of what you’re told. And capitalism will just tell you to work harder (for who and to what ends?). 

And it’s OK to say that life right now is a hellscape. It’s not fatalism–it’s reality. And by embracing what is, then you can have the knowledge to change it.

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are things I still want to achieve. But I can’t accomplish this to the tune of the “American Dream”.

That I’m still here and alive is something I need to be more and more grateful for instead of resenting. I was never meant to survive this–from my very birth, which was fraught with complications. 

And this is where saying that life is about the journey, not the destination really makes sense. I may never get to that place of “home” or “community” or “family”, but I still have to journey to these places. Maybe they won’t look like how I thought, but I have to believe they exist, and that they exist for me.

It’s why people make arduous journeys leave their war-torn, coup-riddled countries to come to an unfair place like this one or one like Italy. These foreign places are just a little less unfair enough, and they have a just little bit more room for people to just be.

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This Is My Time

This morning, the thought came to me: this is my time. I’ve waited long enough to live the life that I want.

I’m fed up.

The last straw was extending grace and compassion to the racist, actively psychotic, and downright selfish and cruel tenant that rents a room next to mine. His current and perpetual sins are that he probably has attracted rats to this house (he’s nicer to the stray cat that he leaves food out for) and continuously smokes in his room.

I had hoped when he had a psychotic break in January and cursed me out that he would voluntarily hospitalize him–but, he didn’t. In fact, he became much worse afterward, mainly with the smoking.

And I’m really mad at the owners of this home. They keep giving themselves slack for being non-confrontational about their own home.

“I’m learning as a I go,” I heard in April.

“This is uncharted territory,” I heard last week.

I have been complaining about this guy since last fall.

So when do you actually learn how to manage a property and the people living there? They bought this place in October 2015.

Thankfully, after much shaming and cajoling on my part, the owners have terminated the lease of the human ashtray. He will be leaving by the end of the month.

I’m fed up because my act of kindness was weaponized as cruelty and neglect towards me. I really thought I had found the middle.

What I found was that I was kind of trapped in a circle of betrayal.

Well, wake-up call received.

And the call said: indiscriminate grace can actually make things worse for everyone.

Be brave, be wise.

Let people learn the lessons they need to learn on their own.

Sometimes, suffering can’t be avoided.

But this propensity started long ago, probably as soon as my brother was born. I’ve often stepped aside for others to be first, while I tended to others and neglected myself.

My brother has developmental delays. And I, being the gifted and older child, was relied upon to be OK. I didn’t need to be as fussed over or given as much attention. I had an oddly autonomous yet very restricted life.

My parents didn’t even do that great with my brother, but since he was seen as the problem, he automatically got more of the attention.

This happens often.

I’m glad that my brother is the way he is–even with his emotional challenges now, he has a very pure, loving heart. Yet my parents really didn’t protect or guide him as much as they could because they are narcissists. It’s heartbreaking, because you can see how their selfishness affected him, decades later.

And this narcissism really affected me.

A lot of this is cultural, as the eldest daughter of Ghanaian parents. I didn’t even know that being the third parent or second wife was really a cultural expectation. And why would I? I was born and raised in America, not in Ghana.

As a kid and teen, I really didn’t get to fully be…a kid, myself. There were a lot of opportunities that were either delayed or denied, and there were no good reasons for it.

I’m still trying to deal with those delays and denials now, over two decades later. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about them here, but the six that come to mind are:

1. Starting piano lessons. I asked for four years, starting at age 8.
2. Taking a trip to New Orleans with the French Club at school.
3. Taking a trip to Paris with the French Club.
4. Ending piano lessons after 4 years because my father thought I wasn’t serious enough (I had just one my first paying competition the day he axed my lessons).
5. Not going to a slumber party where all my friends from church were. I don’t think I’ve actually been to a slumber party.
6. Taking a missions trip with my youth group, right before our beloved youth pastor was going to leave for another church (my mom decided to go to Ghana for the first time, and it was assumed I’d stay home and be the lady of the house (which I really didn’t need to do).

I hate how whiny this sounds–and whether you think this sounds whiny, I don’t care about that much at all.

It’s more that even though I know why most of this happened–narcissistic parents, a father falling further into the depths of untreated bipolar disorder, and unspoken cultural expectations–it’s really hard to let this and other things go.

It wasn’t that my parents couldn’t afford any of this stuff. My dad was an ER doctor. It’s just that they simply withheld these things, things that would have enriched my life.

And this is all relative, too, because you could be reading this and not have had access to these opportunities like it I did. I definitely don’t want this to sound like poor little upper-middle-class girl. It’s what the denials and delays represented.

I’ve already told my parents multiple times how I felt about their parenting job. Of course, they weren’t thrilled to hear my side of things. They were defensive. I’m alive, educated, had a roof over my head, clothes on my back–mission accomplished! They only could see that they didn’t give me as much attention as they gave to my brother.

I told my mom recently that she didn’t really give much attention to my emotional life as a kid and she really was taken aback by that.  She did not agree at all.

But I don’t really have anything to prove to them any longer. My truth is my truth. Whether they agree with it or not doesn’t matter to me anymore.

So, I’m not bitter. Anymore. Hours of therapy and prayer…and just, time…have done the work.

I’m just sad.

I was a really good kid. I never really got into trouble, did well in school. But you couldn’t tell the way my parents treated me. Hypercritical, withdrawing, yet relying on me to hear about their lives while never asking about mine.

Whether I was good or bad really was about whether I inconvenienced my family or not. I got no praise for the good, and got a lot of attention for the bad. I’m lucky that I wasn’t so desperate for attention, that I just started getting into trouble to get attention. I never wanted them to just interact with me because something was wrong.

Although they gave me many gifts, such as my intelligence and musical acumen, their obsession with blind obedience didn’t really help me to be an independent person. I had to learn independence in a piecemeal way–and it’s something I’m still learning, especially when it comes to what I can change and cannot change in my life.

All these events created grooves into my life, grooves where I actually kept putting other people first, like with this terrible creep tenant.

And it really pisses me off. I know this stuff, but it’s so hard to get out of the groove of self-abandonment.

These imprints are working on me on so many levels. There’s a pallor of grief that’s hard to wipe away. And the grief is over who I could have been if my parents hadn’t been so caught up in their own lives. I had to climb over extra obstacles to get to some semblance of sanity.

And then, as I tried to escape them, I dragged all this extra weight into college–which I had to wait an extra year for because my father was even more mentally ill–which broke me while I was struggling to pay for college.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression a couple of months after I had turned 21. all those delays and denials finally caught up to me.

Then waiting for 3 years to go back to college after I couldn’t pay. A miracle of debt forgiveness got me back in and I graduated at 26.

Then, my life continued to center around the church. I was putting up with shitty, probably racist friends in the name of community and Christ.

Little did I know that Jesus didn’t need me to do that kind of martyrdom work.

You know, maybe the greater good includes me, too?

There’s been a lot that’s been out of my control and I’ve just had to roll with it, and learning how to be flexible and accommodating is a gift–I’m grateful that it’s a part of my resilience arsenal.

But then there’s the time when you’re growing older and there are a lot more things under your control, where you’re not at the mercy of circumstance, where you don’t have to be reactive–but proactive.

I’m not under the thumb of my parents anymore.

And I can tell you, as I’ve probably said before here, that there have been a lot of repetitive events and lessons–especially in this house, mainly passivity and enabling bad behavior.

So I’m 40 now. When is all of this going to be over, then?

I’m pretty sure I’ve learned the lessons I need to learn here in Florida, right?

Can I declare that today, I will no longer put up with people’s selfishness and stick up for myself the way I’ve stuck up for other people?

I can and I will.

There’s so much of my life where I have been trying to catch up to where I should have been years ago. And if there are any little burps of anger from the past that come up, it’s around how my youth wasted on people I don’t even give a fuck about anymore and probably never gave a fuck about me.

So much wasted time and energy–and in the name of what?

There are all these Christian and spiritual platitudes about being selfless and putting others first, and, I don’t care if this sounds haughty–I was going to do that anyway.

I didn’t need some higher power telling me to be kind to others. I see the importance of kindness and selflessness.

But that innate propensity has been exploited for years and years, and I’m super big mad about it.

Also, I’m really hurt at these good intentions here in this house have backfired and made my life worse. I put someone utterly vile and contemptuous, just because he is mentally ill, first.

That was really fucking stupid.

And I didn’t do that to be a martyr or to become a saint or to get any praise or even to feel good about myself.

I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.

But the right thing to do from now on is to be a lot choosier about who I put first–which, for now, will be me.

It’s been too long. So much waiting for my life to begin, to catch my breath, to create life, to expand outside of these four smoke-filled walls.

Maybe circumstantially, I still have to ride these waves that I can’t control.

But spiritually and energetically, today I can bring the pendulum of love in my life back to center.

I can draw a line with indelible marker and say here, look, take notice, remember, beware: I’m not putting up with shitty people or the cruel mistreatment of others any longer. They can find their own redemption on their own journeys–without me.

My journey is to be extra kind and gracious to myself–just like how I’ve been to others and have barely received it in return.

My journey is to make it up to that younger woman, who was full of promise and wonder and fire and warmth, to get back into music again, to go to Paris, to go to New Orleans again, to find friends that aren’t fickle or fairweather.

To not be someone’s extra parent or spouse. To really be my own person.

My journey is to be even more zealous with the healing of my past.

It pains me to keep bringing up old shit. I don’t want to be defined as the girl who was deprived and neglected.

I want to be the woman who was able to overcome all those things and really live, really love–even if she was barely taught how. And that is miraculous. I want to revel and dance in the glory of that bright and shining miracle…of me.

The time of enduring and waiting and overlooking and second-guessing and hoping and merely holding on is coming to a quick close.

Even if I have to will it to end, it will end.

This is my time. This is my time to embrace how whole I’ve been this whole time. And no one is going to get in the way of my joy and fulfillment ever again.

This is my time.

—

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lucky blooms 💐

Well.

First of all, reading that from poet Sharon Olds immediately pierced me, with some hope.

I come here lacking gratitude for my opening buds, and especially for the buds that have yet to be formed.

But I’m feeling a little chastened. I usually don’t do this much throat clearing before I get into a post.

(This post is brought to you by the pre-mid-life crisis transit of Pluto square Pluto.)

I don’t feel so lucky. I feel tired. I feel late. I have been planning my life my whole life. Hear the travails and laments of a tortured double Capricorn.

I thought I had some wisdom about this post, about how things were supposed to happen. It seems to have escaped me. I’m sure I’ll find some new wisdom as I write.

Things are getting better. I feel 10 years late on that, though. If I were 29 and finally starting my own business, that seems right. Why did this take so long?

I know why. It’s a lot of stuff, and here’s the timeline:

family upheaval caused by untreated mental illness ➡️ delay in attending and finishing college ➡️ finding my own emotional equilibrium ➡️ discovering I suck at college science ➡️releasing medicine as a future profession ➡️ picking up writing as a potential profession at age 30 or so ➡️ finally getting to do it on my own as a legit business nine years.

But that’s how the story was supposed to go. Why? Because it happened that way. This was my timeline at age 17:

college ➡️ med school ➡️ psychiatry residency ➡️ married and have my first kid by 30.

Look how tidy that is. I am pretty sure I was fretting about this with my 11th grade English teacher. Maybe deep down, I knew that this little neat timeline was not going to happen, which is why I was having legit panic about whether this was going to happen.

The delays, the diversions, the detours—at least I can say that it got me back to myself, to my first love of writing. I also thought that things like marriage and kids would just happen.

And, they haven’t.

I’ve gotten to this weird place of resignation that probably comes from going through very hard times for a very long time.

Sidenote: I hate that I have to care about this stuff as a woman, but I also hate that I hate that I care about any of this at all. Most men do not sit around fretting about marriage and kids. Maybe I thought like a dude for a little too long. Even beyond just stupid fertility, I’m socialized to want this thing that does not help ultimately make women happy.

I’m in this thing I can’t really speak of publicly, but it’s like this energetic holding pattern where I have to wait around to see what happens. In the back of my head, instead of anxiety, there’s just a knowing that things will work.

But the resignation makes me feel safer. I’m tired. Holding out hope for things you can’t control gets tiring.

And that’s probably the point, too, right? To let go already. There’s some weird alchemical thing that has to happen. You have to reach the end of yourself, to feel your fingertips to start slipping on the last threads of hope you have, and then something, Something, catches you, just in time.

I’m starting not to care anymore, though, like time’s run out. I should just be grateful that I can kinda be an adult that can take care of herself, that can see herself through crisis after crisis. And yet time probably hasn’t run out. Yet it’s easier to grieve and let go than to hold on. It’s doubly sad to think about. But hope is a very heavy thing and my arms are buckling…

And then the Universe will send a sign. It is not in agreement with me about giving up. It’s a cycle of despair and determination that I’ve gone through many times this year, not only with love, but just life in general. I’ve thought about how life would just be better if it stopped because the agony of living was not worth waking up to.

So, I was thankfully wrong about that.

—

Let’s go back to what Sharon said. Am I going to be one of the very lucky ones when it comes to love? I feel like my business had to be established before I’m released from whatever holding pattern I’m in. And maybe, you know, it’s not about me. It could be about the other person, it could be about other things that I had to go through that I don’t even realize yet. I’ve been told as much by probably tarot readers and astrologers. It’s hard to remember since the goons of poverty have been pummeling for a while now.

Patience. Oh, patience. I tire of you.

When I think about my friends who have all started families, looking at their curated pictures on Facebook, I stare back into the emptiness that engulfs me locally. Being down here so long, as I have said a few times here, I started to forget how to be human. In Libra season especially, it starts to look like something is wrong with me.

🗣Nothing is wrong with me.

Going back to Chicago this month to escape Hurricane Irma, I realized how easy it was to be myself there. I left a lot of heartache and betrayal there, too, but I laid it all to rest (almost 15 years of shit). When I move back, I don’t want to be thinking about any of that. This year, with a bevy of Aquarian friends, I’ve been able to find that wicked sense of humor that carried me through so much grief and loss, but also just made the room lighter.

Hey man, I’m back.

So looking into whatever *this* could be, it’s more than my 17-year-old self could have hoped for. That’s why I’m still kind of loitering in confusion. It would be worth waiting for, too, even this long, even as patience and temperance and perseverance try me.  That isn’t me holding onto hope, though. That’s me being curious about how things will work out, if at all.

Gosh, could it really be that good?

And here comes the grace…boy, it has been a time. I have had a time. Why would I expect anything good from people when I could write a series of books of all the heartache, betrayal, and just plain evil I’ve experienced? My track record with the human race is spotty. There have been some angels and demons, and then some people I can’t remember…

Scolding my skepticism seems silly now.

Despite wanting to join Facebook Nation and say, hey, I checked some other adulting things off of my to-do list, it’s the Pluto square Pluto thing (transiting Pluto is in my 1st house, and my Pluto is in my 10th house). I’ve been obsessed with legacy. What am I leaving behind when I die? I really hope it’s good people—my (now future) kids.

Nothing seems good enough yet. I have barely begun.

But whatever. I’m a double Capricorn who can’t plan that much right now. I feel like I’ve been benched. Put me in, Coach? I’m ready to play? Today?

Yet it does feel weird to just think—if this were meant to happen, it would have happened already. It almost sounds logical, but my life is strewn with late blooms…

Oh well. You tried. Good effort. At least you survived. Count your lucky blooms, girl.

Consolation prize: your very breath. *sigh*

Did I mention I was tired? If anything, if anything, this year, my ceiling was raised so high, it’s practically the sky. If I have to come back and try again, then I know what to aim for. And that would be a very big if at this point.

It’s also a sign of healing, though. Please let’s give myself some credit before I drag my sorry soul over more broken glass. My hierarchy of needs is not an inverted triangle anymore. Being able to support myself means I can support a relationship, and now I don’t feel as desperate for it anymore. And I’ve heard that desperation, shockingly enough, pushes things away.

During my years long time out with the Universe, I’ve watered and nurtured my spiritual roots. I’ve found amazing women that I am close with and love dearly. It’s the right ordering of things. As I told one friend: boys last. Always last.

But hey, it’s Libra season. I do care about the one-on-one, a lot. Where my Pluto is, also in Libra, also means I’m going to care about this topics in a big mushroom cloud sort of way. I don’t want to kid myself here.

I’m ready to live already. Unencumbered. I’ve waited for college, for grad school, for my career.  Even still, though: good news! The treacherous obstacle course of my life seems to be nearing completion. I’m not sure if this will be waiting at the end.

So I’m just going to close my eyes and run like hell to the finish line.

This song just came up in a Daily Mix I’m listening to. I hear you, Universe…

—

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lucy, desi, lucie, desi jr.

I recently wrote about my own family’s astrology, which really tripped me out because of how my brother and I were the solutions of what elements my parents lack (earth and water). I randomly stumbled upon Desi Arnaz’s natal chart because he and I have similar chart patterns (bowls above the horizon). I noticed that he and my mother have the same birthday.

I had read that Lucille Ball had noted that her marriage to Desi wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant as it was portrayed on the TV show, “I Love Lucy.” And then I saw that she was a Leo. It was like my parents, but reversed–including in age (Lucy is older than Desi).

Today is Lucy’s birthday. She would have been 106 years old if she were still living. She is a Leo like my father. What’s interesting about Lucy and Desi involves their moons and ascendant/rising signs. Desi has a Cancer moon and rising. Lucy has a Capricorn moon and rising. By degrees, both of those placements are in strong opposition.

Guess what their children’s sun signs are? Lucie Arnaz has a Cancer sun, Capricorn moon (hello full moon baby, like my brother), Leo rising. Desi Arnaz, Jr. has a Capricorn sun, Pisces moon, Aquarius rising.

I looked at their north nodes, which have a lot to do with fate.

• Lucy’s north node is in Taurus.
• Desi’s north node is in Capricorn.
• Lucie’s north node is in Pisces.
• Desi Jr.’s north node is in Aquarius.

And here are some interesting connections in their charts:

• Lucie’s midheaven is in Taurus is conjunct, but not by degree, to her mother’s north node.
• Lucie’s north node is conjunct to her dad’s sun.
• Desi Jr.’s south node, in Leo, is conjunct his mother’s sun.
• Desi Jr’s Mercury in Capricorn, is conjunct his father’s north node.

I didn’t want to start looking at what all these signs may mean about their relationships to each other, or their individual personality traits–that would take a lot of time and it’s not necessarily my focus of this post. I just thought it was so random to have a famous family have the same sun signs as my family, but all in different configurations.

The north node contacts make me think that although this marriage ended in divorce, there was a lot fated for this family to be together, to learn from each other.

Additionally, quincunx relationships, or relationships with signs five signs away (the angle is 150 degrees), can feel like fate. The Obamas are a classic example of how that can work, and work beautifully (Pres. Obama being a Leo, and the First Lady as a Capricorn). But it can take work. It can be really tough. I can only imagine what a Leo woman living with a Pisces man could feel like. Maybe those lunar and ascendant oppositions weren’t harmonious.

I can tell you as someone who has that Capricorn-Cancer opposition, it’s a push-pull seesaw that can give me emotional motion sickness. It doesn’t mean, though, that I can’t find some spiritual Dramamine, or a way to keep my eye on the horizon. And that goes for relationships with people, too.

I don’t want to get too heavy into the synastry (relationship astrology), but it doesn’t seem that hot between Lucy and Desi, in retrospect. I don’t personally think any relationship is doomed because of synastry. It can be a good user’s manual for a relationship, or a post-mortem of why a relationship worked–or didn’t work.

If you didn’t get any of that somewhat technical astrology jargon, here is your TL;DR: you and your family, for better and for worse, are probably bound by fate in ways that you don’t even realize. Astrology is a way to explain those connections, to make sense of the randomness of the genetic lottery that we’re all a part of.

Even when I felt like I never belonged with my family, I can see how I am inextricably tied to them, and them to me. Even if it’s not the happily ever after that I’ve fruitlessly sought, I know that our astrological aspects to each other, even just our sun signs, have taught me things about loving myself (Leo), the importance of family and close friends (Cancer), and spirituality (Pisces).

Even when things end, there’s still a lot of good left.

—

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the past future

Last Memorial Day, I went to Cassadaga and spoke with a medium. Even reading that post, I missed some things that I didn’t had forgotten. But I had been looking over my notes that I came across as I was looking for something. I really wish I could have recorded the conversation, but her energy just shorts that all out.

Most of these notes haven’t really come to past. She was able to see my pretty fucking useless Gem crush (damn you, Millennials) from work last year. She thought I was close to real love.

Beyond that, here are some more highlights. I wanted to see how close I was to these predictions coming true.

*Underestimating myself

I put the asterisk when I wrote it. I’m not at all close to where I should be. That’s probably my core struggle and frustration. It’s probably a Capricorn thing. Goals on goals on goals. There’s so much stuff that she listed that was great about me. I know there is so much within me, untapped, unused, unseen. I need to ask my angels and guides to open that shit UP, like right now.

Counseling/”Not enough hands-on time with people”

Being currently car-less, this will be tough to do, but maybe I should be volunteering? I really love just having in-depth conversations about people’s lives.

With Cancer season, I feel like I’ve gotten really opinionated but also very much about relating. The medium mentioned me being a counselor. I’m like, meh, I don’t know, STILL. She felt like my voice will be used to heal.

Teaching

Well, I’ve taught before, but it seems like whatever gifts I have, they are not being used yet. I need to write another book. Apparently, I will be writing textbooks.

Children

Just like last year, this year children and family keeps coming up in oracle card readings. Just by being in a child’s presence, I can change their lives. And, with it being Cancer season right, it’s about nurturing. I really do hope I get to have my own kids, but like my Cancer friend in Atlanta, with her youngest Gemini girl, I’d love to be nurture a lot of kids.

“So serious, but need joy”

I think that sums my life. I don’t even have anything to add. Damn.

And here’s something beautiful, like a song lyric: “someday will be bright and blue.” I’m not sure that even means. I think it means it’ll be really clear what my future life will look like.

—

The medium gave me a lot of book titles for me to read. My last note: “twists and turns, left turns, right turns, not straight.”  That is so true, still. So there’s that!

I feel like I’m so close to real love (yes, like right now and I can’t really talk about it–although if anything come of it, it’d be kinda cool to talk about because it’s so immaterial right now), to those seemingly mythical kids. Yet, of course, I feel really far away. Kids keep coming up for me, for years and years, and yet now I feel even further away from this future.

But tomorrow, everything could just change. I could have one meaningful conversation. I could find an amazing client. So many things that I don’t even know could happen. It’s hard for me to live in the world of possibility, but that medium saw so many wonderful things for me.

I guess I’m just making those left and right turns…

—

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