bridges, crossed or burned
I didn't think I would see the eclipse yesterday. We're outside of the line of totality and I didn't remember to purchase glasses ahead of time (despite one of my close friends being a huuuuuuuuuge space nerd and talking consistently about her trip to a city within the line for about a month now...oof, Eve, get it together). Still, I could see the sky tinting a greyer shade of blue as the afternoon ticked by and I snuck out of my office about twenty minutes prior to the "peak" in our location to try the pinhole method on a sheet of paper. (It worked!)
I figured that was the best I would get this go-around, so I was pretty excited when one of my co-workers called me and told me to come to the front of the office, because a few people had brought glasses and were letting other people look through them. It was just past the greatest point of coverage when I got there, but it was still just a thin orange sliver when I took my turn. I only looked for a moment, embarrassed to be stealing someone else's time with their glasses, but I did take an opportunity to snag several photos of the crescents of light that overlapped the parking lot.
About an hour later, I had popped back on Instagram to see if any of my friends had posted anything from their views of the eclipse, and I stumbled upon a video. I've always been a casual enjoyer of astrology, with my level of belief waxing and waning throughout different points in my life, but I do think there is something to be said for some celestial input in our daily lives, much like the moon pulls the tides.
To add proper context to this next bit, I should probabaly mention that I recently wrote a letter to a friend of mine, detailing some things about our friendship that I felt had broken down over the last few years. When I wrote it, I didn't really expect to send it, but after it was all on paper, edited, and I had spent a few days mulling over it, I realized I felt like I really, desperately needed to send it. So...I did. (This is still such a, like, holy shit moment for me. I can't believe I actually did it.)
I hadn't expected the response to the letter to go....well. And it definitely did not. It went a little differently than I had anticipated, but ultimately, it was about as explosive as I had imagined in my numerous worst-case scenarios.
Long story short: the friendship has crumbled hardcore and I'm not sure we can come back from it. I don't think I want to go back to the way it was and I don't know that this friend and I can meet in the new middle ground I've created by virtue of revealing my thoughts & hurt feelings. (Obviously, this lacks a lot of context regarding the content of the letter. Sorry about that.) I've been oscillating wildly between feeling very settled & self-assured about what I wrote / what I've said since, and feeling sick to my stomach & worried that I should never have done it - that it was wrong of me, and I should have just kept quiet and let things play out.
However, I know myself. I'm starting to really see myself, I think. I would never purposefully hurt someone. I said what I said in order to stand up for myself, but not from a place of trying to hurt my friend. It's a fine line to walk and, obviously, not one I perfectly met, but I can't obsess over every little thing, especially when I know what the overarching message was, and that I made it more than clear I love my friend very much and would be happy to talk anything out.
Anyway, circling back to the point! The point being that I was on Instagram and a video began playing that mentioned that we're in "eclipse season." This is, apparently, a time of huge change in the astrology world. I close out of the app and attempt to hone in on my work again, only to re-open my phone & frantically google the term.
According to an article1 from The Cut, this time period is marked by "insights into whatever is standing in our way" and "speed[ing] up time by perpetuating the inevitable". Um, WHAT! I was so freaked to see a mention that there was a lunar eclipse about two weeks back, which brackets the solar eclipse. Guess when I wrote my letter....? Yeah. TWO WEEKS AGO.
I know this is likely a coincidence, but I just had a moment where I was staring so blankly out the window and thinking, "Oh, what the fuck, did I blow up my long-standing friendship because of some celestial interference?" Like, it was long overdue, but the timing is just really throwing me for a loop, I have to confess.
I guess I feel like I've just finished crossing some wild, years-long emotional bridge in my life. Here I am taking a few shaky steps onto solid ground again. I can't look behind me to see if it's burning & I shouldn't - I have other things ahead of me that I must turn my attention to.
Maybe I have the eclipse to thank for it; maybe I have this blog, which has given me the space to practice meeting myself on a new level; or maybe I just have myself to thank, for making the hard choice to speak up for myself, even knowing the outcome might be bad.
Perhaps I have more grit that I give myself credit for.
Good luck out there,
Eve
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"Get Ready for the Solar Eclipse in Aries to Change You" by Aliza Kelly for The Cut.↩