I Regress: In Honor of the Blue Moon, Which Has Really Ruined My Week†

Has anyone here experienced the total wrong-ness of growing up backwards?

No? Really? I guess I’m the only one. Again.

In a complete paradox, I seem to get younger as I age. Not in a sci-fi way. Or a Benjamin Button way. Also no, that does not mean I don’t experience newly-forming wrinkles or stray gray hairs. What I mean is that my internal life, or spiritual self, is youthanizing. Er, when I made up that word in my head it sounded so much better. Youngerating?

Anyway, I know exactly to what I should attribute this phenomenon, too. It’s most likely because I’m a Capricorn.*

[*Hmm, another example of things sounding so much better in my head. I’m a little embarrassed. This is like earlier in the week, when I announced to everyone on Facebook how much I’m enjoying Battlestar Galactica on Netflix; it sounded like a good idea at the time, but generated a lot of ridicule and gave people the wrong idea. As in, “will you be attending next year’s Comicon?” and “have you ironed your Star Trek uniform today?” So no, I am not a master of seances or casting spells or calling the 1-800-have-you-kissed-your-astrologer-today hotline. My interest in astrology is a holdover from a childhood narcissistic fascination with myself.**]

[**Wow, that didn’t sound too much better. I give up]

I am a Capricorn. One of the identifying characteristics of Capricorn, the Goat, is that Capricornians ages in reverse, starting out as serious children and becoming more youthful as they age.

It’s nice to have a scapegoat for my immaturity (pun completely intended).

Now, I studied astrology briefly when I was a wayward youth lost in the clutches of the occult, and was struck by the description of the serious child who becomes more carefree and fun as it grew up. I sort of hoped all this brouhaha was true, because then I could be freed from my prison of worry about such imponderables as my own mortality and why everyone my own age seemed to have nothing in common with me, yet I could talk with such ease about military history and literature with all my grandparents. Although I couldn’t imagine not being so serious; after all, who was going to worry about the ice caps melting if I didn’t consciously think about it for at least twenty minutes each day?

Little did I know how true the astrological folklore would turn out to be.

While I can still converse with my remaining grandparents, I now have lost a great deal of the debilitating anxiety that accompanied my youth. Little things don’t bother me anymore. I laugh a lot more. I have a lot more fun. I feel…lighter, like I no longer carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Even though I was super-tall as a kid, that’s still a lot of weight to tote around; I was just unaware that every person on the planet was not out to harm me, or worse, tease me for my gangly legs and constant need for tissue.

With this youthilating comes the wonder of not taking every wayward remark personally. Of shrugging off an attack against me that really has nothing to do with me and getting on with my day. Of taking the shitty things about life in stride, because after all, tomorrow is another day, and as God as my witness, I will never be hungry again! (I picture myself giving this speech right after Rhett walks out that door telling me he doesn’t give a damn.)***

[***Please tell me you have seen Gone with Wind, or I might start repeatedly banging my head against the wall and then lock myself in the closet because I will have filled my embarrassment quota for the week. At least it’s almost Friday.]

Best of all, my youngifying has bestowed upon me the supreme gift of no longer fearing to make an ass of myself in public. Hence this blog.

† What does any of this have to do with the Blue Moon, you ask? Really, it doesn’t. I’ve just had a crappy week, and there’s a Blue Moon out, so I just came to the natural conclusion.