The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Stages of Being a Gemini
By Elly Call
QuailBellMagazine.com
My mother was always intent on the intricacies of astrology—which is really just a stick-up-the-butt way of saying that she got us astrological readings when we were infants. I mean, as much as I’m sure each parent wants to know what to expect from newborn interlopers, horoscopes are entirely too convenient a cheat. So “Oh, that’s such a Gemini thing,” and “Ah, always wanting to know how things work—there’s our little Sag,” were thrown around at us as early as I can remember. At five, three facts were already impressed upon me:
1. I had another personality, one that would eventually consume me. I did not know intimately, but one that existed because as a Gemini I was a twin. This twin was to be feared, but I was sure I could deal back anything that twin might have to deal out to me, and even if we were doomed to destroy one another I knew I could dole it out just as bad as she could—the benefit of being the same person. Take that, you evil devil. 2. I liked mirrors, and this was fine because I was always supposedly looking for the face of my twin. I would later realize that this rationalization of my vanity on my mom’s part was kind, optimistic, and grossly inaccurate. 3. I talked a lot—though I had not experienced this particular part of my personality myself. I was sure, however, that it would eventually kick in and I would rule the school with my words of wonder. So far, I hadn’t spoken to anyone for extended amount of time at school, but this didn’t worry me because I was a Gemini and this characteristic would take over my personality for sure one day, similar to the impending battle with my inner twin, so I faced my inevitable vapaciousness with as much apathy as a fairly ADD five year old could muster. And with those three things in my mind, and emphasized to me at random with the words of my mother, I proceeded to mess around in sand boxes and hit people without provocation like any given elementary schooler. I was given to eavesdropping as a kid, and that was how I learned where to find out about my supposed true nature: The Secret Language of Birthdays. So I dug up the book. It was a navy blue number with that cheapo gold leafing of the '90s, and I opened it to June 17th: Yes, I talked a lot— in fact, the book all too cheerfully pointed out, I would make a good con artist. I was given to lying. I could truly stretch a story. I could couldn’t I! I thought in a panic! There was that one time Dad scolded me in one of my earlier memories when I thought I needed to poop but then I changed my mind and he told me ‘once a liar always a liar, so never tell lies.’ Was this traitorous astrological star I’d been born under? Yes, the page continued. In fact, I was to ‘guard addiction on all fronts-from drugs…even sex” SEX. Sex was one of those words people said in pig-latin to each other on the playground. I closed the book, trying to comfort myself with the fact that I didn’t really know how sex worked, anyways. I worried about it anyway. And decided that maybe it was just better not to talk. I didn’t want to lie, and apparently it, along with my impending vapaciousness and evil twin, were coming whether I wanted them or not. Soon I would join the rest of the sinners who were liars for the rest of their lives. Did this just happen to everyone born in June? I wondered. I resolved to never lie, never talk, and never think of sex. Fortunately, my little extremist self failed all three. After that it was a question of accepting myself in stages. First, I was the life of the party, except I didn’t like parties, I didn’t like talking to more people than I had to, and I didn’t even really know anyone to party with in high school. Then I was vapid—yet it was because I couldn’t contain my ideas. But this lack of restraint reflected an inability to consider others which really was intrinsic to my nature as a traitor, liar, and Gemanian con artist. But then my two-facedness didn’t have to be a good and evil face, if we were going to get polar about the entire affair—I could just settle on being an embodiment of human duality. But even then- everyone is dual. Everyone has the wolf they choose to feed, right? But then all of the above really just boils down into a heavy “supposed to” that sounds scarily prophetic, as I read doomsday reports in the Aquarian bookstore about my inability to commit, my impending divorces, and my societally useless mental calisthenics—I mean I’m entertaining if anything. I guess. But then there are the “supposed tos” that I don’t fulfill—For all my supposed commitment problems I sure as hell hate the romantic games that I’m supposed to enjoy. We’re supposed to be school girls sexually—does that just kind of leave me as a fetish that’s the life of the party, vapid, yet an awkward expression of human duality that leaves me right where I began—a weird human mosh-pit with many faces that my parents dubbed “Elly” and hoped the best for? It’s like a nice way of just saying I’m a traitor to everybody, but that it’s not my fault because I don’t really have a singular self. As comforting as this explanation of my true nature is, I find that I prefer to just try to ignore my astrological origins. There were some promising parts of the extended horoscope my family had done for my sisters and I when we were babies but the parts most redeeming were chiefly centered around the qualities being non-Gemanian. I mean, the best part of my birth seemed to be being born with a Taurus moon since it’s the opposite of Gemini, and my strengths were explained by the ways I was not Gemanian in later planets of my astrological chart. In the end, my Gemanian nature and its relevance to myself seems to boil down to a grandly ambiguous cosmic “meh.” But that would be something a Gemini would say, isn’t it?
#Real #What'sYourSign? #Gemini #Talkative #Twins #CosmicMeh
Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Comments
Keith
9/4/2018 12:32:15 am
Elly, you are anything but vapid! Nothing wrong with being a school girl in bed, the life of the party when there is none to attend, or even a Gemini.Enjoy the roller coaster, and you meh not, ever. Comments are closed.
|
|