Back on my bullshit

Neptune's back in Pisces (I say while sighing heavily). This again. Neptune's orbit of the sun is a circle, so it runs through signs pretty evenly, spending 13.9 years in Pisces. We are almost done: it leaves Pisces January 26th and won't be back in the sign in our lifetime (unless you are a vampire). But it makes one of the hurdles for all of us not getting sucked back into behavior we've spent the last 6 months shaking off. For me, my problems are complacency and disappearing acts.

We'll do disappearing acts first: I've accidentally or on purpose vanished so many times during the Neptune in Pisces transit. Once someone told me to get lost and I don't think they knew how immediately or effectively I could do that. In hindsight, maybe I should have stuck around just a little bit longer and fought that a little harder, because it was a super-dramatic and emotionally charged situation. But I'm one of those people who doesn't need to be told to leave twice.

Additionally, I got pretty good at weaponizing absence, and to be clear, I mean specifically when I knew someone was going to corner me: I made it a point to either appear and vanish as quickly as possible, or never show up at all (if I could swing it). A guy I know once bragged to me about his Irish goodbyes (meaning leaving without saying goodbye if that's not a term you've heard before). It was all I could do to not laugh in his face.

During the rougher periods of Neptune in Pisces (when it was active in my chart by transit), some of my disappearances were because of what I can only describe as emotional claustrophobia. I'd hit psychic overload at a social event or sometimes at work and make a mad dash for the exit as soon as humanly possible, feeling like I was gasping for air, mostly because I didn't understand what was happening to me or why/how my existing sensitivities felt like they were cranked up by a factor of 10. If could do those times over with the knowledge I have today, I'd fare better. Pisces keyword: “overwhelm.”

Now for complacency: throughout Neptune's transit in Pisces I had a couch I had a love-hate relationship with. Mostly hate. It served a purpose for a couple of years and then started sinking and peeling, and it got contentious between us. Eventually I just ignored its presence: it took up space and I resented it. It was one of few things I kept from my "old" life, and the memories associated with it weren't particularly of the feel-good variety. It got to the point where every time I acknowledged its existence I felt like a loser.

Neptune transited into Aries in April, and I was able to shake off the tolerance of the couch and a lot of the disappearing behaviors. The couch went away. I moved and got some new furniture (I had a great deal of complacency about my old place, too, and the couch was a microcosm of that). I made efforts to say goodbye to people on purpose when leaving a location. Like an adult!

So here we are with Neptune back in Pisces and I'm genuinely afraid I'm going to start up again. I'm not proud of my disappearing acts. I'm hardly bragging about how long I put up with that stupid couch. A few days ago, I had an interaction with someone that made me feel vaguely humiliated and as I was walking away I was doing quick math on how long I could reasonably avoid seeing them again if I wanted to stay invisible, and I caught myself, like "no! bad! participate in society!" The problem is that it's just so easy.

Join me in not sliding back into bullshit?