Miranda in Retrograde by Lauren Layne

Author:Lauren Layne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

SAGITTARIUS SEASON

The threat of change seems to be knocking on every door today, darling Gemini. You’ll feel as though you’re looking at everything with fresh eyes, from old routines to relationships that are perhaps not quite what you’ve always believed. Try to embrace the discomfort: it’s attempting to tell you something.

I’ve never been a big Thanksgiving person. I’m not anti, or anything; the holiday’s always just felt like too much.

Too much pressure. Too much family drama. Too much food.

Growing up, we’d always spent it somewhere else. Grandparents’, aunts and uncles’ (and not the cool aunts and uncles like Lillian, but the uptight ones who wouldn’t let you have pumpkin pie until you’d eaten the Brussels sprouts).

When the extended family had eventually scattered in my teens, my not-terribly-kitchen-inclined parents had taken to ordering a premade meal from the local grocery store. It must have been more for us kids’ sake than their own, because there hadn’t been even a whisper of a guilt trip when I’d stopped going home every year. Providing, of course, that I made it back for Christmas, which I always do.

But that means, more years than not, Thanksgiving is spent… alone. Daphne always goes to Michigan to spend it with her mom and stepdad, and Lillian has a long-standing tradition of a Caribbean cruise with her friends. I’m not close enough with any colleagues other than Elijah, and even his and my friendship isn’t remotely at the level of warranting a holiday invitation.

In years past, I’ve spent the long, luxurious weekend all to myself to… work.

And I don’t say that in a please-pity-me way. I’ve always loved it. I catch up on academic journals; I lesson-plan. I assess career goals. I grade papers, tweak exams. All while eating too much pie, because while I may not participate in most of the usual holiday traditions, I can certainly get behind the magic that is pecan pie. Until now, I have never been able to imagine a better way to enjoy a few days off.

But here’s the thing about making work your whole life:

When your work disappears?

You realize just how empty your life really is.

And how alone you really are.

Halfheartedly I sit at the kitchen table and open Predictive Astrology. I’ve felt pleased with myself these past couple of weeks for having graduated beyond the beginner astrology books, perhaps even surpassing Daphne’s knowledge of the field, at least in terms of facts.

But tonight, I can’t get into it. Any of it.

For the first time since I can remember, I don’t want to read. I don’t want to learn.

I don’t want to be alone.

And strangely, the absence I’m most aware of is… Archer. I haven’t really registered just how often he’s around until he’s not.

I hadn’t even realized he was planning to go out of town until I got a text message yesterday reminding me not to overwater his precious basil while he’s gone.

I do that now, pleased to see that the plant is thriving, as are the rosemary, thyme, and sage.

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