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260 hysterical
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So hey, it's that time of the month for the very first time! (cue Caterina's theme - hope you heard it, its a quicktime movie file) This month I'm asking the question: When Do We Grow Up?
You see, a girlfriend did my star chart some months back. Apparently all these important planets were to be entering the 10th house shortly. 10th house in horoscope language relates to reputation, career, profession, public life, that sort of thing. Fantastico, my professional life was going to take off like a rocket. Only thing was, I wasn't ready: I got no career.
This month the problem becomes urgent. According to Susan Miller now is the time to make it all happen for myself; the stars are so uniquely auspicious that they will NEVER be this good again in our lifetime. Any other Leos out there? Get on it or miss your window of opportunity. Me, I think I will be standing around as usual with my finger up my nose wondering when I will find out what's going to happen to me.
It has been like this always, except when I was a little girl and claimed I was going to be an anthropologist (my mother was reading Margaret Mead's Blackberry Winter at the time). In those days I figured there would be this point when I would look around, see my life and know that I had grown up. This, all of it, was what had happened to me. Sometimes I felt in such a hurry, because I couldn't wait to find out.
Years later I graduated university just in time to catch the tail end of the generation x-ers. HEY! It is NOT an excuse! Whatever you've read about us is all basically true. We were the victims of our economy and our time; just like all you successful youngsters who believe you are cruising through your glam jobs on individual merit. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to me and my friends if we hadn't suffered/enjoyed seven years of underemployment after school. What if a boom economy had welcomed us with positions and training and moneymoneymoney? Maybe Canada would be shy a few thousand struggling artists. Maybe I would own a proper suit by now. Maybe I would have an answer ready for the inevitable question "What do you do?"
Its not that I haven't had proper work since those salad days (read: cigarette days). I've done a lot of drawing and writing. I've had many jobs in many countries, took some good photos. But none of this serves to describe what it is I think I "do" in three words or less. I don't know how to crystallize this elusive thing and I'm thinking it might be a good idea if I did. It might get me focused, give me some goals. Scanning my horoscope doesn't seem to work. Nor does clicking "connect" and hoping the answer will appear in my In Box. On a bad day I worry that I have no drive or ambition. On a good day I figure maybe it's all about the journey, not the destination.
Luckily I'm not alone in this philosophy. One muchacha has quit designing cd-roms and begun studies to become - get this - a marine biologist. She's now back in undergrad with her new friends Calculus, Physics and Chemistry 101. Another has accidentally become national spokesperson for independent Web-streamed art. And yet another says to me over coffee in Singapore: "I wish I could find myself a gig where I spend most of my time reading magazines and surfing the internet" Suerte amiga, I'll bet you manage it.
A few years back I read somewhere about a study that showed we would all change careers an average of seven times over the course of our professional lives. I'll bet if they re-did that study today they wouldn't be able to keep track; they wouldn't even be able to define when one "career" ends and another begins... I'll bet, I'll just bet you.
Hasta la proxima, Cat.
(y muchas gracias a The Harvey Averne Barrio Band for Caterina's theme)
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