what's your sign?

Fate is something many women take really seriously. Be it in love, luck, fortune or hardship, I find that females often attribute happenings to some ambiguous, predetermined course of destiny; their own exclusive kismet, if you will (as it turns out, you will.)

You know the expression. "Everything happens for a reason." Surely in some circumstances the phrase is comforting, especially in serving as a form of validation in cases of misfortune or uncertainty. Lady Luck takes a back seat to life's auto-pilot, and we're left living out our days in cruise-control.

Its as if we're suspended--women on wire, waiting for our stars to align. We're loitering in the purgatory of our own minds waiting on the world to change, and while we wait, we read our horoscopes.

They're everywhere. Daily newspapers, iPhone apps, widgets and even the most reputable of magazines, among them Us Weekly and Cosmopolitan. For many of my friends, reading a daily horoscope has become the way they start their day, sometimes even determining their outlook for the following twenty-four hours. My mom reads her forecast in our home-town newspaper, but "only if it has at least 3 stars", indicating a positive fortune for the day.

Our signs go much further than daily predictions, though. In this day and age, many people take their horoscopes extremely seriously, and live their lives by the guidelines of the stars. I know women who will not date anyone born in a conflicting astrological sign, citing that the relationship is pre-determined to fail. Says who, I ask? Gandalf, the Keebler Elf and Papa Smurf, answer the future psych patients.

I have to admit, though, I love reading about the characteristics of my signs to see what the heavens assume of me. I read them and smile inside. Virgo tells me I am gentle (okay), caring (yes), delicate (debatable, but sure),  helpful (totes!), loving (very!), needy WHAT?! Who is this prude bitch to say I'm needy? I'm not needy! So not needy. Am I needy? Tell me I'm not needy. I need you to tell me I'm not....fuck.

For whatever reason (see: sanity) I've never been able to take the cosmos too seriously. Sure, I look at my horoscope when its presented to me, but I take its advice with a grain of rock-salt and go on about my business. I like to think that the course of my life is a result of my own decision-making and not at the will of a few gassy balls in the sky. No one likes flatulence, least of all when it moonlights as something as beautiful as a star. I don't need a dipper to help navigate my existence, be it big or little, and I would never wear Orion's belt; so not my style.

So while I enjoy a night of star-gazing as much as the next hopeless romantic, the constellations and I butt heads when it comes to happenstance. Still, I'll read at the end of my People Magazine and silently wonder if there's any truth to this madness.
I'm only human, after all. Kidding, I'm dancer.