The Color of an Aquarius

“Why isn’t your hair in braids?” “Do you ever get sunburnt?” “If Martin Luther King wasn’t a thing, you wouldn’t be here.”

Yes, I had someone tell me that when I was a measly eight-year old. There was a discomfort within me that I felt when microaggressions and racist comments were made towards me, but I was the only girl of color in a class of white people. Who was I supposed to relate to?

All I wanted to do was fit in, and yet, I inherently felt misunderstood simply from my appearance alone.

Reading was always an escapism for me. I’d sit on a big red couch in my living room and plow through astrology books. I learned so much about my star sign, Aquarius. Aquarians are often mistaken as a water sign because of its symbol as a water-bearer. However, it’s indeed an air sign. It’s misunderstandings like this that basically sum up an Aquarius. Expect the unexpected with the dreamers of the zodiac signs.

I distinctly remember being on a road trip with my friend who was a Virgo, or as I like to call Virgos - non-believers. He was perplexed by the idea that I could tell so much about a person just by a rap sheet of character traits associated with birthdates. But it’s uncanny how much I see similarities in different signs such as Aries's stubbornness and Libra’s peaceful nature.

“I just don’t believe in that stuff. There’s no way to actually prove it,” he said.

“That’s such a Virgo thing to say,” I remember saying humorously.

But truly, that’s the thing that makes astrology so interesting. Just like the meaning behind dreams and tarot card readings, there’s an intangible nature of astrology that will suck an Aquarian like myself in. But even more, Aquarius is celebrated for its differences, and it was the first time I felt proud to be different.

Aquarius’s are known for being eccentric, free-spirited, progressive and independent. I take so much pride in all of these traits. My eccentricity radiates in conversations as I usually take on unconventional views. My free spirit is iterated in my decisions such as that one time I decided to book a last minute trip to Barcelona, and my liberal views are expressed in my writing as I often discuss women’s rights and diversity issues with passion. I’ve always been a bit of a floater so being independent is normal for me as I often find joy in getting sushi by myself and going on a meditative walk. Being an Aquarius is pretty fucking awesome - especially because I feel that these traits are ingrained in me.

But with every good trait there’s the harrowing set of negative traits that we all acquire too. As eccentric as I am, I’ve always had a hard time fitting in and going with the majority. I don’t like people who complain and I don’t like people that speak poorly of others, so I would say my friend group is limited. I am free spirited but not practical at all. I can be scatterbrained and aloof and Excel spreadsheets are the devil to me. My point being, we’ve all got different dynamics to our personalities, some that I really love about myself and others that I detest and maybe need to work on. What astrology has done for me is allowed me to look at myself in the mirror and really ask if I identified with my sign and a pretty simple follow up question: Was I happy with myself?

I've always had a complex with being a bit different. And what I’ve learned over the years is that those aspects that we don't absolutely adore about ourselves, they don't just disappear. All the ugly aspects of ourselves and insecurities we build up from childhood - they fester. There’s only so much you can hide about yourself. If you cover up parts of your bodies - your body is still underneath all that clothing. So what do you do?

You embrace it. And claim it - whether it be your sexual orientation, your intelligence, your skin color, or your thighs that you want to hide, the best thing you can do is embrace your insecurities and all the ugliness that might come with it. A lot of the time, these insecurities are things that we should be embracing anyway. But we live in a cruel world where being different is still being penalized still, whether that be in transgender rights, women's rights, implicit bias in the workplace and unfortunately much much more.

I look back at my childhood memories and felt a lot of shame in my skin color for the longest time. I felt like I needed to accommodate to make others feel comfortable when it should have been the other way around. By like the true Aquarian I am, I can take those experiences and continue towards progress in both myself as a human being and as a society that needs to embrace diversity more.