Cosmo Scorpio

My mother has always loved her magazines. Vogue, Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, People, they were always there littering the tabletops. But her Cosmo was my favorite to sneak away with as a young girl.

I was mature, reading about sex and love and taking the steamy quizzes about relationships I was too young to have. And of course checking what the month held for me in the horoscope section.

"Scorpios-watch out this month! Mars is aligning with Neptune around the 18th, bringing a workplace argument that is sure to be heated. On the 25th step out of your comfort zone! Pluto is setting you up to meet a new friend, who has the potential to become a heated lover."

For a 12 year old tween, this was terribly exciting. A fight at work (that must mean school!) and a new love somewhere unexpected?! What a month! It didn't occur to me track the dates, so if something with the slightest hint of being related to my fortunes occurred in the next few weeks, it was confirmation enough.

I loved floating in our big, circular pool at night, staring at the stars, daydreaming I was onboard Voyager from "Star Trek", visiting far off worlds and saving my crewmates with my dexterity, a past time I still indulge in now.

Maybe that was my sign peeking through.

Scorpios are part of the water trio, and the most renegade of the bunch. We like the dark, mysterious, and sometimes gritty danger of the world. We obsess over deadly secrets, the more morbid the better. We take no prisoners, and if we're wronged, it's time to put on our leather jackets, smoky eyes, and plot revenge; if one of our own is in hurt, then there's real trouble.

I'm a grown woman now, and never have time to read Cosmo, let alone worry about my horoscope or if I'm doing something that identifies me as a Scorpio, but every once in a while, I'll have a look at what my day supposedly holds.

Sometimes those PTO meetings about fundraising do indeed seem like Pluto is influencing attitudes. My oven breaking would most certainly be considered an unexpected tragedy. My husband surprising me with an overnight trip, sitter already arranged, is a love surprise-influenced by the waxing moon and Neptune?

Probably not, but maybe.

According to most compatibility charts, my husband, a Sagittarius, and I are barely able to be in the same room together. Yet we've remained happy and content for over a decade. Of course we've had our arguments, like all couples do, but can that be attributed to cosmic forces?

Or perhaps it's just our nature to disagree, yell, and fuss each other, no matter the time of year you're born? Just as it's in our instinct to love, touch, and be kind to others. Would my family be in hateful disarray if the children had been born a few days later, making them Virgos instead of Libras? I may believe in a lot of things, but I don't believe that.

It's easy to imagine an outside, higher force leading decisions in our lives, determining the outcome of events beyond our control. And in some ways I can agree with this theory. I know practically nothing compared to the grand vastness of the universe. But I'm not convinced that being born one day compared to another will make your entire personality change.

So I clearly don't put much stock in horoscopes or that my being a Scorpio has any bearing on my life. But with a seemingly endless universe, and eons upon eons of time before I came to exist, can we truly know what influences fate?