Thoughts About Keeping It Real.
Did a celestial shift affect my way of seeing the world or am I simply burnt out?
As a millennial who grew up at the cusp of the digital era, I've never been one to spend much time on horoscopes or other types of astrological readings. I don’t remember my ascendant, I'm not sure which one is my moon sign, and I've given up on trying to understand what it means to have your 10th house in Pluto.
When the strategic prompts written by Co-Star’s clairvoyant copywriter started hitting a little too close to home while being generic enough to fit the whole Virgo population, I understood it was time to let it go. I wasn't about to let the popular platform swindle me into becoming an avid follower of their new-age religion. In one click, I deleted it from my phone.
Generally speaking, though, I consider myself a superstitious person – I'm not a maniac, but I'll casually partake in beliefs. For example, I’ll casually walk under a ladder or scaffolding if I'm not paying attention, but I also believe that carrying a date pit in my wallet will bring me luck and money. I won't freak out if a black cat crosses my path, but I do have a fake red peppercorn hanging on the wall of my living room. Whenever Mercury is in retrograde, I try to laugh it off, and if something odd happens to me, I tend not to attribute it to the unfavorable planetary alignment.
I guess my short-lived interest in astrology was — just like my Catholic upbringing — the byproduct of peer pressure mixed with the human need for answers to unanswerable situations. When I emancipated myself from the urge to attribute meaning to the coincidences of life and accepted that not everything is a conspiracy against any of us, I organically walked away from the movement. Now, whenever my friends tell me it’s a great period for Leo ascendants, I chuckle.
Despite my newly acquired stoic approach to life, I've been feeling like there has been some kind of unprecedented celestial shift, and I'm the eye of the storm. I was hit by an extremely strong need to purge everything that does not serve me. It's a very curious feeling – the type of visceral sensation you get when your home is too messy to be able to function, and all you want to do is lay idle on the couch.
I'm not sure if this is what having an epiphany means, but it feels like I've been living in the dark, and all of a sudden, the heavy curtain covering the source of light was peeled back, revealing a scenario I had not been aware of. This abstract need to "Spring" clean – shout out to my friend Krizzo for lending me this bar – is affecting every aspect of my existence.
From the city I've been living in to the people I surround myself with, I feel the need to shed the superfluous. This has nothing to do with Milan or certain acquaintances per se. I don't have anything against them.
Besides growing increasingly weary of certain dynamics typical of any urban context where appearance counts more than morals and personal values, I still vouch for the city I learned to call home. It just isn't the place for me anymore.
I've been feeling apathetic, detached, and unmotivated to go out and mingle – needless to say, this isn't healthy or productive.
While I'm proud of the commissions I've been getting and delivering since the beginning of the year, there's a voice in my head suggesting I'm robbing myself of precious time I should be spending on other types of tasks.
I keep battling with the notion of commissioned vs personal work, but it’s a catch-22 as the latter cannot exist without the former. Without getting too philosophical, it’s like a plug was pulled in my brain,and the walls surrounding the section that deals with compromise suddenly crumbled.
To use more popular (vulgar) terms, it seems a switch went off and my threshold for bullshit has drastically decreased.
Now, I don’t know if this is a symptom of burnout or the natural evolution that comes with maturing, but I am a reformed woman.
If this planetary shift occurred to me five years ago, there would be plenty of casualties as a result of my unchained soul-cleansing process.
As I continue to investigate this situation to understand if I simply need a vacation, one thing I learned is that – no matter how harsh or painful it may be – keeping it real is a must. Bottling things up for the sake of peacekeeping is a ticking bomb. Once the timer goes off, there’s no way to manage the explosion.
Things I think people should be aware of:
It does sound like coming of age/maturity.