Astronomy says that Saturn makes a complete revolution around the sun every 27 to 29 years. That means that in the same interval, the planet places back in the same position that it was when you were born. In astrology, this is known as a raucous period of existential crises. This is when you get a sense that, perhaps cosmically, something significant, larger and more universal is just 'round the corner. This is when the universe conspires to set off upheavals and disruptions in your life almost all at once. This is the Saturn Return.
I googled my birthdate and learned that I’ve been in my Saturn Return for quite a while now. This got me contemplating on how my life was and has been thereafter, in wishful thinking that I will be able to deduce my contemplations to a relative sense of rationality.
2016 was the year that I doubted all the decisions I made in my bout of quarter life crisis. The doubt translated to a non-existent career and a relapse of mal de cou cou. This was the year that Cancer won and took my mom. This was also the year that I somehow convinced myself that it was a good idea to give love and relationship another shot, only to be reinstituted as someone’s almost.
2017 was the year when I, voluntarily and involuntarily, started to lose grip on the vestiges of who I thought I am, who I thought I’d become, and what I thought I had. In this year, choosing to be withdrawn and devoid of life was more appealing. I was a personification of a cliché – I was broke, and I was broken. It was not until towards its end that I was able to try to reboot. I have chosen and was able to go back to the industry that I was once wrong to leave. I also met someone who genuinely wanted me in his life and actually did something about it. But the catch was in what he didn’t do, which is respect me. Several force-ons, a couple of bruises and a flesh wound later, I finally freed myself.
Come 2018, and I tell myself that there are people that have gone through worse things. People have died horribly, people have lost their entire lives senselessly, the world is in crisis; what business do I have, writing from this privileged standpoint, from the comfort of waiting for my conveniently hailed transport? I am living comfortably despite my episodes and bad spells. I still have it good, and I know it. But another voice says: That’s not the point. It says, that does not invalidate anything I’ve felt or gone through. It says, my having it ‘good’ does not make it so that I also don’t have it ‘bad’. It says that I have a right to feel the way I feel.
I managed to manage my own emotions, barely. It was not easy, and looking back, I can’t imagine how I pulled it off (how I’m pulling it off). I was (am) sad all the time, for no reason that I could comprehend. I try to rationalize but feel sad anyway. I couldn’t understand why, and it’s frustrating.
And the most difficult was that my Saturn Return hit me so hard that it wiped my slate clean. I don’t know who I am, I’m now almost never sure where I’m going. Sure, that sounds alright when you’re fresh out of college, but when you’re nearing your thirties like I am, it’s a terrifying prospect. And now, here I am trying to cobble together a new face trying to build myself again from almost nothing, unsure of the form I will ultimately take, and unsure if it will be better than the one I have shed.
Will I soldier through? If I get through this, will it prove who I am and what I want to do? And maybe I’ll get that certainty, that clarity, that comfort, that fire to keep me going. Imagine being able to throw yourself completely into your life, confident in the knowledge that you will be fine. But in contrast, will all of the questioning and self-doubt bring me back to not wanting to be alive anymore?
I know nothing for sure. The disappointment, the fear, and the uncertainty continue to sink me into the dark (in a life already constantly plagued by it). I am attempting to rebuild myself, and as hard as it has been, I’m trying to look at Saturn Return as an opportunity. The uncertainty is unsettling and I am very, very lost. I feel like I’m standing on a precipice, looking out into darkness with the knowledge that the only way out is through. Because while I’m not certain about a lot of things, I am certain that unlike Saturn, I can never go back.
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