Air + Air = Wind

A while ago, as part of the overall mid-life crisis thing, I got on a horoscope site and did some compatibility stuff with my sign, gemini.  The results were pretty interesting.  It reminded me of frantically looking up crushes in Linda Goodman's Love Signs, a book my girlfriend had in high school.  Or taking Cosmo quizzes entitled, "Is he the one?".  Although back then, I recall ignoring any "bad" news in the compatibility chart in the hopes that my sun or his moon was rising somewhere that would make the incompatibility go away. 

It's funny what you do when love and marriage are a far away thing.  I had a little cigar box for many years that I kept mementos in, one of which was a clipping of a wedding dress I loved, and another was a catalogue photo of an adorable little boy.  They were bookmarks in what I hoped would be my story. I guess I was afraid I wouldn't remember what kind of dress I wanted to wear when I got married.  But for some reason, doing those things when I was very much alone, living in New York City, without a grand life plan, and struggling emotionally a lot of the time - helped me feel like maybe things would get better.  

I think my MadamovaryPart1 blog spoke about this, if not I'll mention it again.  I spent most of my teen years and early 20s looking for love.  Despite having the world on a string - a full scholarship to college, a metabolism that allowed me to literally eat anything and not gain a pound, magnificent girlfriends - I never allowed myself to just be happy in those moments.  I wanted to be in love.  And I let the presence of love, or lack thereof, determine far too much of my happiness.  I don't have many regrets, but that is a big one.  I suppose I simply didn't believe it would happen for me, because I had no sense of my value as a girlfriend, or partner.  I spent a lot of time with boys and men who didn't necessarily "get" me. I held onto them with sex.  I rarely felt 100% comfortable with my boyfriends, and I was usually afraid of losing them.  And I pretty much always lost them - and it was never my idea to call it quits.

So when the midlife crisis hit, in addition to a whole host of craziness along the lines of, "I should have majored in Elizabethan drama!",  I spent a lot of time mourning those lost years.  Mourning the fact that all that time, I already was "me" and I didn't appreciate who I was.  I settled...and then got my heart broken over and over again.  I vowed to be different after the last bad boyfriend, and lucky for me, my next date was my husband.  I've written about this in more a fictionalized memoir form, and I may even post it next time for some feedback.  I feel like I have a book in me, somewhere...

But back to my title.  My husband and I share the same sign - gemini - and evidently, air plus air equals wind, and that's a good thing! The wind beneath my wings, perhaps... And when I read the detailed explanation, it all rang very true - even the areas where we do have differences.  The night of our very first "real" phonecall, my husband said in surprise, "Wow, you get me!" after one of his clever jokes which I laughed at.  And he got me.  And like the fairytales say, we "just knew."  Of course, the fairy tales don't get into the nitty gritty of married life, but I can honestly say that when I met my husband, I felt I had found the right person, finally.  I laugh now, because I thought I was ancient and time was running out.  I was 26!  

But the horoscope indicated we had an intense intellectual and emotional connection, which we do, and a playful physical connection - which we do.  But given all the reminiscing I was doing about the past, I wanted to check out the horoscope compatibility for the men who got away, the ones I thought I loved, the ones who broke my heart.  And none of that meant I didn't want to be with my husband, but if you've ever gone through one of these searching, disorienting times in your life, you do go back over things, you wonder about the road not taken.  

Jeez, how long is it going to take me to get to my point?  And I'm still not writing about the upcoming nuptuals!  Okay, so here we go: Air plus Earth equals DUST.  The kind you choke on.  And I KID YOU NOT - as I tried to remember the three birthdays of the three "almost" loves of my life, they all fell under earth signs.  And the outlook is not good, folks.  And the reasons why are really fascinating.  With 42 year old hindsight, I can see it all so clearly - why I seemed flighty to the earth boys, why they seemed remote and cold to me, why I actually frightened them!  What I considered generous, they considered irresponsible or bizarre - whether it was emotional or material in nature.  My own generosity made one of them uncomfortable enough that he actually said, "you make me feel like a bad person because you're so giving."  Then he dumped me.  And I cried when I should have just grabbed my gemini twin and gone on a pub crawl or something.  

There was one boy in particular who haunted me, and my husband is so amazing that I was actually able to talk to him about it as I went through it last year.  So when I plugged in his birthday with mine, and it came up, DUST, I read the rest without a great deal of surprise. But I was amazed when I got to a further breakdown of the Capricorn sign - because it just so happens that the guy was born on one of a handful days that made him disasterous for the madam.  And boy, did I suffer at the time, and I allowed that one relationship to taint the rest of the most carefree time in my life. Ah, youth...

And even though that relationship is ancient history and I'm where I am meant to be, reading the post mortem on a love gone wrong somehow soothed me.  Particularly when I realized his wife was an AIR sign, too.  Evidently, another one bites the dust, only she's in it for life. (oops, that's the evil madam talking...)

Obviously, I believe in the zodiac.  There's just too much there that rings true for me.  Should you pick your spouse based on a horoscope web site with a free compatibility report - probably not.  Did I need independent confirmation to feel good about our decision to get married?  Nope.  Was it totally fun?  Absolutely - because unlike reading a cosmo horoscope about a high school crush and an uncertain future, this time I already know how things turn out!  And you know what else?  I realized my wedding dress was surprisingly similar to the one I had cut out so many years ago, and the tow-headed boy with the big eyes looks remarkably like Lying Child as a baby!