The Sun and The Shift

Something is shifting inside me, inside my consciousness or in the place my self-awareness lives, or my self-esteem. Maybe the shift is wrapped in self-love or self-confidence. I’ve been exploring timeline shifts, quantum leaps, and the idea that every version of ourselves already exists, so that if we just visualize our future selves in the future house/clothes/career/whatever, we can shift our entire trajectory just by placing ourselves in the exact circumstances we want to be in in our minds. So maybe it’s that. Maybe I’m feeling different because I am mid-shift.

Maybe it’s because astrologically, as a Libra and a cardinal sign, I just wrapped a 15-year cycle, so whatever was to be learned, whatever challenges I had, etc. are done and I get to move into a new cycle. Interestingly, I moved to Texas 15 years ago this June, during my Saturn return period, which panned out to be a period of financial hardship, emotional retching along with measurable growth, a new career, heartbreak of all kinds, and marriage, and I believe I have taken everything I can take from this lesson in Texas and I have given Texas everything I have to give. It’s been complicated. Also, interesting- to me at least- I am shifting away from the career that brought me here and into my writing career, so I am highly suspect that this is more than coincidence. This new cycle promises many things, starting with “new horizons of opportunities and adventures for Librans, personal growth, professional advancements, harmonious relationships, and financial stability” on tap for 2024, according to the hindustantimes.com. Even the cards agree: tarot reading after tarot reading all say the same things: big changes in money, big changes in career, big change, big change, big change. Maybe it us just because I am 43 and the amount of fucks I give on any given day is dwindling. Who knows. All I know is that when I sit here and say I feel a shift, you can believe me.

It may not look like it on the outside, though. Except that I vowed to wear lipstick every day in 2024 for some reason, so maybe that is the outward expression of what is happening on the inside. But what I do think it will look like is me being even more of a weirdo than I already am. Let me explain. I have spent my life feeling inherently different than everyone around me. I have never really felt like I fit in anywhere- not with my family, not with my varied groups of friends over the years, not with coworkers (although in fairness, my bookstore and Whole Foods families were comprised of a bunch of weirdos and those were the two places I felt most like myself, so there must be something in the books and organic foods that draw in the misfits, and quite honestly, now that I say that, it totally tracks.) And I know it may not seem like it, but I have really worked on minimizing my weirdness. You should see what happens inside my brain and my body that I don’t let people see.

Up until now, suppressing my normal tendencies has actually left me feeling bad about myself. Like my true self is something to be ashamed of. From my quirks to my clothes to my décor. I went through a period where I got rid of all my hoodies, because “grown-ups” don’t wear hoodies every day. I got boring matching furniture and painted my walls greige because that is what “grown-ups” do. Because that is what the magazines told me to do. (I actually just saw something about how most people don’t even know what they like, they just think they like something because they are supposed to like something.) But I just am not interested anymore. In any of it. And that is part of the shift. Part of the shift is rejecting norms, with more voracity than before. And I can do these things because I am feeling more like myself, accepting myself for who I am, and liking myself for my weirdness, rather than despite it. An awakening if you will.

My first clue was that something was changing is that last month, December, I spent the beginning of the month in my normal year-end panic to get a laundry list of things done before the end of the year. Clean out my email. My closet. Get those Christmas cards out. Check off as many things as possible from my 2023 list of things to do at the expense of my mental health because goddammit I want a fresh start. And then, to my own personal surprise, I said fuck it. I did not clean out my emails. I did not do a single thing. I sat and read books and soaked in mineral hot springs. I watched TikToks. I decided I could send out New Year’s cards instead of Christmas. Or Easter cards because what a surprise. I realized that everything -everything- is ridiculously arbitrary and none of it is real. (This thought came to me as I was drifting off to bed and the way it released me from some invisible chains is something for the great poets of the world to write about.) LIKE, THE NEW YEAR ISN’T EVEN REAL. The calendar says it is because literally some dude in the church decided what day the new year starts. So, we all just go by that. But you know what? Around the world, and across cultures, the New Year starts at different times throughout the year. So, make up your own “New Year,” it doesn’t matter.

Of course, I recognize that there are constraints we all have to abide by, like 2024 is obviously a thing for certain recordkeeping purposes, but the rest is just arbitrary. Our jobs, our money, none of it is real. It is all a made-up concept, which means everything is as real as it is fake, and we just plug along playing the game in these little skin suits. But it is all pretend, and none of it matters (there are a few exceptions, like saving lives. That matters.) And that is liberating. And I feel strongly that the better we play pretend, and use our imagination, the better our lives are- which ties into timeline shifts and every version of us already existing. (I know, I’m going to lose some of you here. I understand it is a hard concept to convey, especially if certain beliefs are deeply ingrained. That’s fine.) Anyway, back to the shift.

Now we are in the “New Year.” And culturally, the tradition is to take your Christmas stuff down after January 1st. Like, January 2nd it is as if the holiday never happened, all remnants of a celebration, of holiday cheer, poof- gone. This is when we have normally done it as well. And this year I said, leave the tree, I like it. I like the lights; I like the tree. I am very used to looking at it at this point, and I know from experience that as soon as it is put away (it is artificial,) that the living room will look weird and empty and I’ll have to adjust to that, and I just don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. Which made me realize that that is another weird, arbitrary rule. It is a tree. Trees don’t have seasons. (Arborists, don’t @ me, you know what I mean.) It is the same thing as a haircut. Haircuts don’t have genders; trees don’t have seasons. Neither do neat little lights that make the living room glow like a bunch of fairies living amongst the branches, so if I want to keep that up year-round, going forward, I am going to. It is magical. And we all need more magic in our lives. If my husband doesn’t want to look at it anymore, I will put it in my office (which already has year-round Christmas lights in it anyway.) But I will not take it down based on some stupid rules that someone I don’t even know made up. And this is part of the shift. If you think I’m weird for having a pine tree in my living room, that is honestly a you problem. I just don’t care anymore.

And I feel free. This is what I am trying to say. I feel free to be weird. And I feel empowered to be like, if my weirdness is too much for you, that isn’t my problem. I don’t have room in my life for people that don’t see my quirkiness as charm or my weirdness as brilliance. I don’t have room in my life for people that don’t support me. I will no longer tone down my weirdness to appease others, when I think my weird little self is perfectly lovely and interesting and a rare bird. Technically speaking, I am very unique- when it comes to the Myers-Briggs, I am one of the rarest types; same with my enneagram. There just aren’t a lot of people like me in this world, so why should I hide who I am to make other people more comfortable? Love me for who I am, babes, or leave. I will no longer make excuses for being eccentric. If I want to make a chandelier out of Barbies or put glow in the dark stickers on my ceiling like I’m 12 all over again or put bumper stickers on my luxury car (deadhead sticker on a Cadillac) or I want to wear red lipstick and a dress to go on a nature walk, I am just going to do it. I am embracing my Weird Barbie and that is the shift, and that is how I know the rest of the good stuff is coming- the success of my books, the influx in money, stability… all of it. I can feel it. That’s the best way to describe it. A feeling, a knowing. A certainty that grows stronger every day guided by prompts from the universe on what step to take next. So, my door is open.

And this, this is all part of the shift. Whether it’s within me or within the stars, I don’t really know. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s the same. Maybe the stars are in me, and that is what makes me sparkle. Maybe I am filled with a thousand galaxies and constellations, revolving around this heart of mine that is the sun, glowing with the light of a billion bulbs. Maybe it’s the Morganverse. But whatever it is, I welcome it. The shift, the change, the end of old cycles and the beginnings of new ones. I am ready to be everything I was ever meant to be, on my own terms, and in my own magnificent weirdness- which really isn’t weirdness at all, it’s just me. And it’s you. Because we all have a little weirdness in us, so let your Weird Barbie come out and play, even if just a little bit, and then see what the sun and the moon and the stars have in store for you too, maybe they also have a shift waiting for you too, with your name perfectly placed on it, in whatever font suits you best.