Lucky Number Thirteen

I’m a Valentine’s Day baby. No, I wasn’t born on Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t born on November 14th, either. I was born on December 1st. Figuring out the Valentine’s connection took time, because I was born a little on the small side, and because Mother Nature protects us from thinking about the date of our conception until we are old enough to think of our parents… Yeah, anyway.

Congratulations, Mrs. Armstrong, it’s a Sagittarius. Fair warning: I just misspelled it on the first try. It’s been a while. I know I am meant to be (I am looking this up) a leader, an adventurer, and a lover of travel. I apparently practice radical honesty. Am I doing that now? Sagittarians may offend. Be warned.

Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong took their little six-and-a-half-pound past-dates should-have-been-a-Scorpio home. They added a Leo before the 1970’s began, and in the 70’s the morning papers told us all how to face the day according to our respective star signs. Remember the morning papers? My poor mother-- a Libra stuck with a Sagittarius and two Leos. Apparently the problem may have been between me and my Leo sister and father. My mother gets along with everyone. Libras, am I right?

Anyway, my mother always says the first twenty-five years of marriage are the hardest. I assume because after that you’ve got the kids out of the house. With any luck.

My Sagittarius goals emerged in high school. I was quite interested in astrology for a while there. What I remember was the connection between my sign and wanting to travel. Specifically, I wanted to get out of my home town. Yes, a Sagittarius stuck in a small town. Wasn’t I supposed to be raised on a sail boat going around the world? Shouldn’t I have been military brat, learning one percent of six languages along the way?

I had more conflict with astrology than I had facing double coverage from the Leos at home. It came from my other love, science. I was the kid whose first library book was “All About Rocks.” Our local librarian didn’t believe children could be trusted with her books, but if nobody had checked a book out in four or five years, she’d let it go, reluctantly. I finally found the only book on astronomy, a wayward college textbook from 1974, and I was hooked. Sorry, astrology.

Sagittarians are skeptical, right? Right. Typical. We believe what we can prove. True, I did want to get out of my hometown, but did I really like traveling? Maybe if traveling looked like it did in Glamor Magazine and Cosmopolitan. Remember Cosmo? Taking sex quizzes in seventh grade? When poor Mrs. Morrison was trying to teach sex ed and the Pilgrims on the same day?

High school was Catholic school. I wasn’t Catholic. I was a Sagittarius. I like to say I went in to Catholic school an agnostic and came out an atheist. They convinced me. I had astrology to carry me through the rough patches. That guy who made fun of me for reading astrology? Total Scorpio. The time I won the Physics Olympiad Medal, along with the Taurus who was totally going to study math in college and had been fated to do so since birth? Predictable. Those daily horoscopes that told me I was about to jet off to somewhere thrilling when I was really going to drive my mother’s ’68 Volvo station wagon to school and I once again hadn’t done any of my homework? Well, it would all become clear when I got a little older.

I finally traveled. Europe. School trip. Now, watching your chaperones/teachers drink themselves into giggles in Spain is a good time. But did I feel I had found my true self? Not so much. But somewhere between Mrs. Morrison’s efforts and the Cosmo Quiz, I found an answer. I was a Valentine’s Day baby. Was I supposed to be a Scorpio? How do I say that in Spanish?

Googles Scorpio… Bad news. I thought the pressure to grow into Sagittarius was increasingly harsh. Passionate? The Cosmo Quiz had put paid to that one. Of course, the potential romantic targets available to me were my classmates, and for the most part they had managed to maintain their cooties from elementary school. Unless you were an actual member of Duran Duran, my interest was low, and was returned.

Saved by the 1974 astronomy textbook, which I checked out something more than fifteen times over the years, the list of my name uninterrupted by those of other local worthies. Turned out my worries of not fitting in well in Scorpio or Sagittarius were for naught— because there was another. Tucked in between the scorpion and the centaur was the snake. Or rather, the snake-bearer. Ophiuchus. I had an ancient sign, lasting only from November 29th to December 18th, a thirteenth sign the morning newspaper knew nothing about, to say nothing of the Cosmo Quiz.

All was clear. Ophiuchans are curious and open to change. Do they get along with Leo? Well, no. But other than that, I saw a world of sense opening up. I suddenly had great humor and was very smart! *Ahem*

Wait… Was I jealous? Angry? Power-hungry? This was sounding less… I don’t even like snakes. Could I take the humor and the smarts and leave the rest? Was I forum shopping? Or did I have it backwards?

Nobody takes any system of belief on board without question (insert the political wisecrack of your choice here). Star signs aren’t prizes you win, any more than any circumstance of birth. Maybe instead of congratulating myself on the qualities I imagined I had been granted, I should look at them as goals. Instead of rejecting the negatives, maybe I should heed their warnings. Maybe I should look up at the night sky and see the stars.

It’s been a long time since I checked my morning horoscope. Turns out I’m a science person. But I haven’t forgotten the enjoyment I got out of astrology all those years ago. The sense of pending adventure it gave to days when all I had to look forward to was midterms. Did I become a world-traveler? Join the jet set? Not so much. Am I a skeptic? Guilty. I lost one of my Leos, my father, but I get along with my sister just fine. My Libra mother just got her second vaccine and I am grateful. So where do I fit? Do I have a sign? Human, I guess, and waiting for the adventure to resume.