If horoscopes made promises that would keep

Written March 15, 2023

Day 22 of 40 in a 45-day period: The other day at work I heard people talking about their horoscopes. One was told to expect a cash windfall; another was promised some sort of financial benefit to come. It got me thinking about how nice it is to look for the glimmer of hope a horoscope gives. But imagine if a horoscope was truly helpful.

What if I opened the newspaper or looked online and read:

You might want to call it in today. The weather is back to winter and your kids’ boots don’t fit but you don’t know that yet because you haven’t checked due to this winter of no snow. That’s not going to end well when everyone has blisters on their heels tonight so you may want to make plans to get out of the apartment and miss the house of winter boot cards collapse.

You told yourself last night that tonight you’d go to bed early to get more sleep and feel rested. Spoiler - you won’t. Instead you’ll stay up too late because you crave time alone to relax and breathe a little easier. Then you’ll hope for pockets of time during the day to close your eyes but that rarely happens so you might want to lower the bar and just accept you are tired. You will stay tired until you stop your scroll or Apple+ watching and just Go. To. Bed. Go to bed.

You’ll be tempted to make the new recipe others have raved about and said their family of 75 loved. Don’t do it. It won’t matter how many kids loved it because the truth is, your kids won’t. You’ll get annoyed and say something trite like, “Well, this is what’s for dinner.” That won’t be what’s for dinner because your kids will eat bagels or crackers or a leftover that is acceptable to their palette. Save yourself the trouble and make nachos like you have every week for the last three years.

These glimpses into the future would save me time and effort and maybe even speak the hard truth I prefer to deny. But then we’d lose that little glimmer of hope, the belief that if I keep my eyes open wide enough, or stay present longer, imagine how the world will tilt in my favor forever and always. For a long time I wanted the glimmer. Today I want the truth. Even if it means we’ll eat nachos twice in one week.