Week of May 10th to May 16th, 2022
You are overly confident in your knee jerk understanding of dynamics, Virgo. Which dynamics? All of them! Any of them! You believe that with a brief introduction (self directed observation), you intimately understand the deep, inner workings of any situation. You trust that your adept nostrils sniff out the hidden agendas, the buried desires, the true nature of all present. This is, of course, entirely false.
It’s unclear who or what planted the original seed that’s blossomed into this ravaging weed. Did someone tell you that you were intuitive? Besides your husband, who says so every time you solemnly, piously, reveal to him that another one of your dreams about a cousin or a friend from high school getting pregnant has become reality (this is hardly clairvoyance, Virgo. High school friends and cousins are the two likeliest populations to start a family).
Your blind self confidence in your immediate, all-knowing grasp on complex social structures is rather astonishing, Virgo, particularly due to your track record.
Your freshman year of college, a guy followed your roommate home from the gym. Your college was evidently flat broke when it came to Hallway Budgets, and your dorms went directly outside (these dorms were in the woods! Just a bunch of front doors to the bedrooms for 18 year olds in the woods! Build a hallway, cheapskates!), which made these already scary actions even scarier.
You’d taken it upon yourself to find the gym follower and enact justice (verbal abuse). Your roommate hadn’t gotten a very good look at the scary man in question; her description of him was vague enough that you grew suspicious of every Nordic looking gym goer.
You’d spend your gym time combing the room for the wicked man you hoped to verbally eviscerate into respecting women. One day you noticed a man watching a woman in the weights section a little too closely. You hung back for several minutes, taking stock of the situation (in your mind you were silent amidst the shadows, making clever mental notes of nuances, but in reality you were just red faced and blatantly staring at the man staring at the woman).
After a few moments of reckless observation, you approached the woman and told her that a man was following her, and to be careful when she left the gym in case he tried to follow her. To which she said, That’s my husband in a restrained but furious tone (not in a lighthearted, sitcom-misunderstanding voice, as one might hope). You skulked away from the gym (it may in part be while you only exercise at home now. Just kidding, that reason is street harassment!), never to return.
This week, two perfect little birds will build a nest on your dilapidated windowsill. One of the birds flies away and gathers the sticks, while the other stays behind and arranges them into a tiny wooden whirlpool. Days later, the stick arranger lays an egg. Getting to watch this process unfold absolutely delights you. Once the egg has been laid, only the stick arranger/egg layer stays behind. The stick gatherer is nowhere to be found. You’ve grown attached to these birds, and feel bad that the egg sitter must now spend her days all alone on your destroyed windowsill without her feathered friend to keep her company.
You’ll spend as much time by the window as possible, comforting her about her apparent abandonment. You’ll commiserate about the challenges of dating in New York (an oboist once gave you unsolicited notes on your naked body!), and assure her that a better bird companion will come along, one who will show up for her and her eggs (yes, a second was laid during your monologue about what it feels like to go to Coney Island with a man and never hear from him again).
You grow so attached to your windowsill bird that each night you say sweet dreams to her in a 'No you hang up first' kind of way, and run to the window to greet her as soon as you wake up. To be very clear, this is a one way relationship. There are two sets of windows between you and her (you had to install soundproof windows on top of your original windows because business is booming at the cement factory across the street), but to you, you’re two gals on the same journey (despite your complete disinterest in child rearing).
Your behavior is what the skies might call a projection. You’re taking human narratives (not necessarily…all humans, Virgo. Your experiences are less relatable than you think. Why did you go to Coney Island with a stranger?) and slappin’ them onto an innocent bird.
A few days into your self aggrandized speeches (assuring the bird that you, too, had taken many unfit lovers in your day), the stick gathering bird will return to the nest. You’ll stand beside the window, mouth agape, absolutely gobsmacked that you had been so wrong about their dynamic.
When you look a little closer, you discover the birds are basically identical, and could conceivably have been taking turns on the eggs this entire time without you noticing. Shortly after the stick bringer’s arrival, the stick arranger will soar off into the sky, unburdened by the problems you believed her to have.
Much to the skies’ complete shock, your moment of surprise beside the bird’s nest will be the first time you’ve really questioned your instincts.
Which other assumptions have you been wrong about? Do the rats living behind the siding of your building not all get along, and band together to cause mischief in a cute, disney type of way? Are your friends not interested in looking at the links to aspirational real estate you send their way, day after day after day? Does the barista at your favorite cafe not believe your feverish laptop typing is scintillating, complex work, that they desperately wish to read one day?
The answers to all of these questions are, of course, no.
Your projected narratives can help make life a little more fun. On the one hand, it’s much more enjoyable to live in a neighborhood where you imagine dog owners delight in your incessant shrieks that their dogs are “little professors.” Life does feel less fun when you know the reality, (which is that all of your neighbors loathe you because you rile up their dogs by shouting esteemed professions as they walk by).
Find a way to enjoy your created narrative without letting it sweep you up entirely. Ideally you should be able to have a few birds fly around your house without making their whole dynamic about the time a man you kissed lied and said he had a Tiny Desk Concert (which he did not. I checked recently, in case they had a years-long backlog, and it’s nowhere to be found. Total lie). This will take time, Virgo, but eventually you will be able to enjoy a spring day without even once accusing a feral creature of the crimes of your past.