Star Struck Style

The sun enters my sixth house this evening. Every year at this time, I write about the same things: breaking out of a rut, being true to myself with my decisions regarding my career, getting organized without developing OCD, doing more yoga, etc. I honestly felt my jaw dropping as I read back the blog posts I’ve published on or around this day over the past eight years. Seeing these cycles repeat in my life is dumbfounding.

However, one thing didn’t surprise me, and that was my desire to return to the duck pond near my house that I discovered during the pandemic five years ago. That pond became my happy place when I needed to break away from everything else, especially television news and social media. The anxiety and uncertainty I felt when the world shut down in March of 2020 was exacerbated by my addiction to those information channels. It was only when I stepped away from them that I started to feel a sense of inner peace. My daily visits to the duck pond kept me sane at a time in my life when I felt like I was not in control of anything.

Knowing that the weather is just starting to warm up and hearing the occasional honk of a goose overhead has me eager to get back to my “happy place” to once again figure out where I’m going to be headed in the not-too-distant future. I’m going to give myself a few months to do a few “sixth house” things that will help me out while I’m on this journey, including simplifying my life by getting rid of much of the excess around me. When the pandemic first hit, I cleaned up my house in a way that I had never done before. It’s time to do that again.

I’m not exactly unemployed this time around: I now have two part-time jobs instead of one full-time job. But I will have more time on my hands to do those things that bring me some peace of mind. In six months from now when I’m starting to feel the financial pressure to do something else, I probably will. For now, though, I just want to watch the ducks — both figuratively and literally.

In my mind, I’m already there . . .