Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just … start.
Sadness expressions of the Zodiac Signs
Aries : Rage, impulsivity and failure to get worked up about the things they normally do, oppositional but with less verve and energy
Taurus : Isolation, binge eating and lethargy, a sense of ‘me against the world’, less patience, easier to enrage
Gemini : Silence, nerves, over thinking, easily distractible and seems ‘elsewhere’; they are fairly intolerable to sadness they tend to detach/dissociate from feelings after a short while
Cancer : Teariness, neediness, isolation, binge eating, crying after insignificant events, stomach aches, a feeling of separation from everyone around them
Leo : Obvious displays of stress, they become like a wound up string and as if they are on the brink of a nervous break down. Short tempered and needy (only around close friends/family) and become martyred
Virgo: Isolation, heightened compulsions (cleaning, washing hands more etc;), unresponsive in conversations, at time blunt and more oppositional
Libra : General feeling of instability/moodiness, reduced urge to socialize/be with friends, hopelessness, a feeling of being disliked/rejected by everyone, you can sense them ‘trying’ to be happy and keep composedScorpio : Isolation, opposition, hostility and violent mood swings. Intense melancholy with at times delusions and paranoia. Thoughts even scary to them, a sense of ‘me against the world’.
Sagittarius : Lethargy, escapism (substance use etc;), uncharacteristically more serious and tense, less tolerance, feelings of worry when thinking into the future
Capricorn : Demotivation, lethargy, hopelessness, over thinking, they seem tense and ‘overly alert’, hyper vigilant, force themselves to ‘go through the motions’, nothing impresses them
Aquarius : Uneasy, harder to ‘reach’; as if they are far away. Silence, isolation, detachment, even though they try to appear happy. Distracted
Pisces : Teariness, anxiety, isolation, when they feel sadness they tend to feel ‘all at once’, nerves, obsessive/ruminating thinking, remembering everything bad that ever happened to them, crying over insignificant events
it’s not about that i know how to do laundry. it’s that when i was four i knew how to fold clothes; small hands working alongside my mother, while my older brother sat and played with his toys. it’s that i know what kind of detergent works but my father guesses. it’s that in my freshman year of college i had a line of boys who needed me to show them how to use the machine. it’s that the first door they knocked on belonged to me. it’s that they expected me to know.
it’s not that i know how to cook. it’s that the biggest christmas present i got was a little plastic kitchenette i never used except to climb on. it’s that my brother used it more, his hands ghosting over pink buttons and yellow dials. it’s that when my work needs cake for a birthday, they turn to me. i get it from costco. i don’t even like cooking. a boy burns popcorn in the dorm microwave and laughs. a week later, i do the same thing, and he snorts at me, “just crossed you off my wife list.” it’s that i had heard something like this so many times before that i laughed, too.
it’s not that i don’t love being feminine. it’s that i came home with bruises from trying to be a trick rider on my bike and heard the word “tomboy,” felt my little mouth say, “but i’m not a boy, i’m a girl”. it’s that they laughed. it’s that until i was sitting in my pretty dress and smiling with a big pretty smile and blinking my big pretty eyes, i wasn’t given back the title “girl”. it’s that until i wore makeup and styled my hair i was bullied; it’s that when i don’t wear makeup i’m a slob, that my mental health diagnosis hangs on the hook of being dressed up. it’s that my therapist sees me returning to bright red lipstick and tells me i am looking happier and i have to explain that i am more sad than i have ever been. it’s that i dress myself in as many layers as i can every time i ride a train because it’s better to be laughed at than harassed.
it’s not that i know how to clean, it’s that my brother’s chores were outside where i wanted to be, and mine were inside. it’s that i would have weeded the garden better than he did if they had just let me. it’s that i am put in charge of fixing other’s messes, expected to comply without complaint.
it’s not that i can’t open the jar. it’s that you ask my brother first every time. it’s that i am pushed into docile positions, trained to believe that my body when it’s strong and healthy is ugly, trained into being less, weaker. it’s that the jar is also science, is also engineering, is also every job, every opportunity. it’s that you laugh faster when he tells a joke, that you take him seriously but wave off me, that when he raises his voice he’s assertive but when i do i’m hysterical. the jar is getting into a car with a stranger as a driver and wondering if this is our last ride. the jar is knowing that if something happens to us, it’s our fault.
it’s that i’m weak and i don’t know if it’s because i just am or i was trained to be. it’s that we need to sit pretty with our pretty smiles and our pretty words trapped pretty and silent in our throats, our hands restless but pretty when idle, our bodies vessels for nothing but a future white dress. it’s that we are taught someone else needs to open the jar for us.
here’s the secret: run metal lids under hot water, they’ll expand faster than the glass they’re around. here’s the secret: when you keep us under hot water, we do more than boil. we expand over our edges. and we learn how to open our mouths, our claws, our screams hanging in kites over cities. just give me a chance. give me a chance when i am four when i am seven when i am twenty-three. i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. i’ll show you something.
my aesthetic is the kid on the playground who tells all the other kids that ring around the rosie is about the black plague
- Cat: *runs by carrying something in her mouth*
- Me: WHAT DO YOU HAVE?
- Cat: *runs faster*
- parent: *says something passive aggressive directed at me*
- me: *becomes irritated in response*
- parent: wowww uncalled for?? how did I raise such a rude child why are you always on the defence
@seethestarsablazeEveryday is leg day when you’re running from your problems

