A SPIRITUAL HIATUS

WHY I NEED A GD BREAK

 Talk to anyone who is diagnosed with cancer, they’ll tell you it's their friends and family who keep them going. They provide hope when you feel hopeless, make you laff when you feel like you want to just want to puke your head off in silence or listen to you and say ‘that really fucking sucks’ when theres nothing else to say. 

Another of cancers secret gifts is when it comes to the near constant evolution of your wee bubble of ‘loved’ ‘ones’ - some people really step into your life in a way you never imagined, others try their best and find their own baggage makes the situation too much and bail and others just fizzle out - not because of your situation, but because they’re just a creep hiding in nice guy clothing. This is a story about the latter. FYI he will not appreciate that I’m writing about this mome in an otherwise v nice friendship but truly, I do not care. But for the sake of protecting this person's identity I’ll refer to him as Planet-man for this ~piece~.

 I was saying my goodbyes to the best city I had lived in, after the worst year of its inhabitants' lives since the Melbourne Storm Salary Cap scandal of the late 2000s.  We had officially eliminated the virus after over 100 days in lockdown, the sun was shining, life was sweet and only looking to get freakin sweeter baby! I didn't know it yet, but this wasn't just goodbye to my pals and the city I loved, but also a goodbye to my freaky deaky love affair with Astrology. I’m only now months later, finding the vocabulary to articulate my feelings in a way that lets me process some of the dynamics at play and not continue to ‘sit in anger’ as my therapist would say and ‘spin endlessly in confusion’ as I would and do say regularly. (FYI this is a VERY Gem sun, Pisces moon, Capricorn rising sentence - IYKYN) 

Here's the lowdown re meeting Planet-man and Astrology: We met through work years ago (an office, trés dull but mostly excellent people. Planet-man was very straight and overly formal but in a way you could tell he was taking the piss and truly did not give a single fuck about our job or the man, man. We became fast friends. 

We were chatting one day over zoom about my impending move to Melbourne having finally decided to flee the small country town feel of Brisbane and my very nice but dull life and he made a few comments about me being a Gemini - this is VERY OBVIOUS Reader, you are literally reading a zine I have made and also I am very funny, smart and charming. He offered to read my birth chart for me and introduced me to Astrology. I was quickly hooked after the reading he gave me where my life was about to turn into a complete dumpster fire due to my impending Saturn return (if you don’t know what this is just google it, I'm not here to do your spiritual labour) - unfortunately for me, he would be VERY CORRECT.

In the meantime, I would fully become ~that gal~ when it came to Astrology. Reader if I told you I fell into the rabbit-hole like Alice throwing herself down a very clearly dangerous hazard and into the darkness it would not do justice to the fervour with which I too, hurtled into the wild world of Astrology.  

 I was the gal who would link everything back to your signs like a born again Christian, taking every freaking thing back to the GOOD BOOK - Cafe Astrology. I was able to link everything back to astro - your behaviour, what you just said, how your mother treated you over the weekend, all back to your sun/ moon or whatever the planets were doing at that time. It was so obvious! GIVE ME YOUR BIRTH TIME! LETS FIND OUT YOUR TRAUMA AND BOND BABY!                   

 I learnt the lingo and the practice of interpreting planets and charts and transits (I was okay, I’m not so high on my own supply I’m going to pretend I was wildly good at it but I knew enough to hold a conversation that sounded like casting spells) and continued to live my life and mostly it just felt like a fun distraction and as close to real life magic as I would ever get. 

I loved how it never ended. Like Harry Potter, Star Wars, QAnon and Bitcoin there was an entire universe waiting to be understood and the outcome was understanding yourself & others more + endless d & m’s! For me, a gossip obsessed Gemini, I couldn't get enough. 

By this stage I had been living in Melbourne just over a year and had developed a wee coven with some great gals and this fella. Planetman encouraged us to push ourselves to learn more and we were all keen students. I wouldn’t say he was a leader in any sense of the group dynamics, but he was the most knowledgeable re Astro. 

It was exactly the support I would eventually need when I got diagnosed with an as yet incurable cancer at 31 in November 2019 (see what I mean! a v compelling reading!). 

Suddenly, everything became a sign, I could SEE the planet's transitions play out in the behaviour of everyone around me, just like the astro podcasts I listened to obsessively for distraction and hope. 

Over 2020, as my health continued to deteriorate as the cancer went to my brain (resulting in brain surgery and radiation) my life becoming more isolated after a year of lockdowns, my fiancé Mitch and I had decided we had fuckin’ had it. We needed a break, some more consistent sunshine, a beach and more family. Like that creep Drake, we too sought MORE LIFE. So we bought a house and like John Farnahm, began our farewell tour.

I went to Planet-mans place in the outer burbs of the city,  where we had v delicious, v strong coffees on the couch and talked about the end of my Saturn return which was due to finish up that day at 4:30pm, his baby daughter napping in her room and his partner at work. 

Generally, talking about Saturn returns and past lives can be overwhelming - lots of info to process and that’s before you have a brain that’s being hit with radiation on the regular like mine. During this conversation Planet-man mentioned that the only reason nothing had ‘happened between us’ was because he viewed me as a ‘little sister’ and later listed off the traits I had he inferred were ‘his type’. 

As this was happening, I, still in a fuzz of processing our Saturn return chit chat, froze. My body clenched and my inner voice told me not to acknowledge this in any way, just be cool and let the moment pass. We continued chatting and I spent the rest the afternoon trying to ignore my gut and get the fuck out of there. Up until now we had been completely (I thought) platonic. Never flirting, always well within the boundaries of friendship. Imagine the white rabbit saying something like this too Alice, it simply boggles the mind. 

We continued chatting, his partner came home a little while later along with another girlfriend and we all hung out for a bit before I said au revoir. Driving home, I made the decision to not tell a single soul, ever, about this weird ass conversation because I did not want to ~breathe life into it~ and to blow it up into something it surely couldn’t be.  

Surely my pal, the guy who introduced me to astrology, the guy who was my brother's spiritual mentor, the man I had referred anyone to who seemed even MILDLY interested in spirituality for a reading, did not just hit on me while his daughter was sleeping in the other room and his partner was at work? SURELY I was misreading the situation and this person was just being complementary and not making a pass at me before I moved away? He can’t have been doing that because apart from anything else, he is a feminist - he has told me so on many occasions! I resolved to file this in the do not disturb folder of my mind, lock it way and never think of it again. 

Well my divalicious divas, I couldn’t fucking help myself - as we all know, gemini’s live for chaos, gossip and talking in order to process things. Twenty minutes later I was talking to my girlfriend and prefaced the conversation with ‘I don’t want to overreact but what do you make of this’. The situation triggered a memory for her of years earlier where he had made similar comments about me re the platonic status of our friendship being the reason nothing had happened between us but she hadn’t known me then, so thought nothing of it. Needless to say, I was CONFUSED.  What did this mean? Did it mean anything? Was I being a drama queen? Obviously yes re being a drama queen - surely you have already surmised as much just reading thus far and this is my first post. I didn’t know what to make of it but I knew I didn’t like it. Much to think about. I continued driving home my day not ruined but not as careless and free as it had felt before.

 When I got home I told Mitch for - it makes me sick just writing this phrase - for a “mans perspective” (if such a thing exists I will add). He took a mere MOMENT to consider and said Planet-man was having a crack to gauge my reaction. It was framed in such a way that he could pass it off as a ‘misunderstanding’,  set in a vague different time where potentially neither of us had partners, things were different and maybe as well I was a different person where such an idea wouldn’t riddle me with terror. 

I realised my intuition was bang fucking on and to keep this silent, to hold my tongue, to not speak on this would do the very thing I wanted to avoid - breathe life into it, at least in Planet-mans mind. By staying silent I would be validating what he said! I must confront him and let him know that I was not complicit in this delusion. So when he reached out the next day, we had the following conversation (don't @ me re grammar and spelling, these are RECEIPTS, all errors are my own):

PM: “Hey friendo, I didn’t get a chance to say thanks for your insights today, they were pinpoint accurate and have given me much to think about. Your really good at that, and I’m hoping its something you keep on with. It can be an immense help to others, eve if they don’t recognise it in the moment! Good luck with the move you legend, and bloody well done again 👍🏻” 

LM: “Sure no problem. Also, I have been thinking about a few comments you made yesterday that made me uncomfortable and were inappropriate. Saying that nothing happened ‘between us’ because you look at me like a little sister is completely insane Planet-many. I came down here w a partner and you have been with yours most of the last two years so i don’t appreciate you saying the only reason nothing happened between us is by your grace, you know? It feels disrespectful to our partners but also: not real. Ive never looked at you in that way and I can tell you for free if you made a pass at me I would have broken your arms - good lord! Anyway it was excellent to see you yesterday but I wanted to clear that up 💖🥳☺️” 

PM: “Oh woah dude! I’m so sorry! You’re right man that sounded completely inappropriate and totally not cool Im so sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable! Please accept my unreserved apology dude that was not cool at all. The last thing I waned was to make you feel uncomfortable in my home man.

Completely agree and didn’t intend to imply it was by my grace or anything, the truth is Ive never looked at you that way either, it was just an observation about something Ive always found interesting as all. I never intended it as disrespectful to either of our partners, it was just something I shouldn’t have raised at all. Thanks for confronting me about this, Im super sorry dude and hope if hasn’t affected our friendship dude” 

LM: "It has not! We are still friends and I am v chuffed we can talk about things like this. Thank you for the apology I appreciate it ☺️☺️☺️” 

As mentioned, these comments were said during a bigger conversation we were having re Saturn returns. What was his expectation? That I would stop him and say Planet-man, I too have always harboured this notion, ever since you told me my life was going to hell in a hand-basket’??? Did he expect me to just not respond as if I was in silent agreement that yes, his account was correct ??? I can’t stress this enough: ??????? Either way, when I did bring it up the following day,  it was too easy to apologise and correct ME because OBVIOUSLY I was WRONG. Didn’t I see that “the truth is he had never looked at me that way either and it was merely an observation of something he’d always found interesting as all.” It bares repeating: ???????

To me, this is the alphabetti spaghetti of apologies, a string of words that ultimately means dick and says nothing coherent, but sounds like something, anything, please just get me the hell out of this conversation because I can not bear to hear about how my behaviour impacted you. 

I can tell you for free, time has passed, it has affected our friendship and I am not chuffed. I find myself not wanting to engage with Planet-man OR Astrology in general. I feel disappointment, anger and shame but it has also made me feel like a real fool for seeing magic in astrology at all. So I did what any distressed, impulsive millennial ready to change my life direction would do - I detoxed my social media of all astro meme pages, tags and accounts to tell the algorithm gods that rule our lives that Astro was out and cute green terrazzo bathrooms and nail art is in. 

I didn’t realise it initially but I'm also surprised. This is the first friendship that disintegrated since being diagnosed that had nothing to do with having cancer. It was just some shitty comments that were unwelcome, untrue and handled poorly that ultimately led me to lose respect for him and the system I associate with him. Both had been there for me during a tough year and to lose both at the same time just really sucked because I valued both so much. 

Like every woman to have ever lived, ever, I was also hurt was because I thought he was one of the good ones. I really valued how insightful, empathetic and just fun he was to be around, just like Astrology. I learnt so much from him and it sucks that he took our platonic friendship to that place seemingly out of nowhere or what appears to be no reason and then denied it happened at all - at least in my opinion. I think a lot of women can understand this experience: a good mate is inappropriate and then handles it poorly when you call them on it. It is so common.

Much like how I feel I see Planet-man more clearly, I feel I see Astrology more clearly too - as something people use to make sense of a nonsense world but ultimately, not something to count on. Like, sign a contract in a retrograde diva, dang. 

This whole interaction just feels very similar to a big vibe in Astrology (as well most cults/ conspiracies) in that there are many layers of horseshit to ‘understanding’ the ‘truth’ but ultimately, it is never ‘wrong’ more, your interpretation is wrong. I don’t know if I’ll return to Astrology. I still feel foolish but can't deny I feel a sense of loss. The space where my spirituality used to be is gone (an excellent title to a country western song written by zoomers) and now just feels like an empty chasm of bitterness I need to process and work through so I’m no longer carrying it with me (a full length track produced by a bitter millennial) 

I feel like I'm at an impasse with spirituality generally but I also know I'm projecting my feelings about this interaction with Planet-man on the system that I felt was there for me when I needed it most, you know, like a good friend and then to be let down by just a weird, disrespectful couple of words/ moments just reminds me that not all cults and friendships are good for you, especially if you have to wade through bullshit to ‘understand’.