New Year’s resolution? With Mercury retrograde I need dark magick, not wishful thinking

I’m pretty sure my Rising Sign is, in fact, blood pressure.

Everyone knows ‘she’ll be right, mate’ but is anyone wondering if I will be alright? - Don’t start a sentence with “Fantastic...” if your next words aren’t “Beasts - And where to find them”.

Precisely today, but a few years ago in Italy, I was in the infamous limbo between ‘starting to pack’ and ‘leaving tomorrow’, where procrastination is key. I’d already re-arranged the spice rack, washed my car, stared at my empty suitcase on the floor and instead of filling it, I resolved to summon all my friends to say a proper goodbye.

I was Shroedinger’s Barbs: simultaneously still there and already left.

Given my social moth status and nerd inclinations, I proposed a motivational accountability game to all my friends. I passed around a sheet of paper for everyone to write what they looked forward to accomplishing within the following 12 months. Half divine manifestation, half New Year’s resolution list of sorts, titled:

List of resolutions to achieve before June 21st, 2016 WBR (When Barbs Returns)

My resolution read: “Finding a job and looking like a ‘serious’ person.”

That meant holding up a metaphorical intercontinental middle finger to the employment agency guy who suggested I study German to land a seasonal gig in hospitality or flee the Country. It also meant slowly drifting away from my beloved gothic-lolita fashion. As much as I enjoyed being part of an alternative community covered in frills, it was not travel-friendly and I always had serious doubts about my employability wearing it.

Except for my auntie who let me work in her wonderful herbal shop as long as I was all dolled up. She’s closed the business now but I trust my frilly presence remains in the hearts of her most loyal customers.

Ever since I graduated from Uni I’ve felt like I was free-falling. All of a sudden I had no path to walk on. Sure, I had a good support system and was not in a hurry or needed to get on my feet but I wanted to start living. I had to do something meaningful with my philosophy degrees but I didn’t know how or where to begin.

Spending a year on the opposite side of the Earth felt like a good way to postpone a reality check.

One of my friends gave me a custom 12-month diary in which I safely stored our divine list of manifestations. I truly aimed to return home with a diary full of learnings and review the list surrounded by all my friends, having accomplished all our intentions and finally doing the adulting thing. How Millennial of me.

Alas, the following June, Mercury was in retrograde and I was in the deep end of my VISA paperwork. We were both far from being on our way back but at least I reached out to my friends to see how they were doing and if they had achieved their goal.

That’s when I realised I’d never initiated any messenger chat with many of them. How did we arrange things? Paper planes from one bell tower to another? Cans with a string across the valley? Pigeons? They are lovely beasts but struggle with long-distance engagement. My friends, not the pigeons.

Below, is one of the recap messages I sent out. It was reassuring and heartbreaking knowing I wasn’t the only one feeling lost in the dark.

I didn’t know you moved back home! Do you have plans or are you just ‘seeing how it goes’ too? As you gathered, I won’t be coming back as planned. I’m still stuck upside down with kangaroos between one VISA and another. I did take a minuscule step forward but I am far from having a coherent vision board for my future. Coming here, I knew I wanted to focus on Human Resources, so I completed an online course (looks good on my CV) around Corporate Philosophy and the prospect of Corporate Counselling is kinda appealing. So, if anyone asks, this is what I’d like to do when I grow up. I realized that if I don’t aim high and pursue my dreams myself, nobody will do it for me. That’s it. This is my very own spark in the darkness. Does it help?

[Sent on 10 June 2016 at 2:10 pm - via Messenger]

This was my time to chase my dreams like a grown-up. Whatever that meant. Yet, realising that nobody would put me on the right path and that I had to do it myself hit me like a lightning bolt. I was in the big smoke now, I had options and no social expectations. I remember the thrilling feeling of completing a short philosophy course for fun but with a clear corporate purpose, and doing so online in the comfort of my own dry UGG boots and not in a freezing English swamp. I could envision a realistic outcome for my years of theoretical studies. Did I land in a Country where my degrees were not only valid but useful outside the Academia? I could finally be the corporate goth riding a Harley Davidson to the entrance of a skyscraper I’ve dreamt of being since I was 16.

I know, some 16-year-olds dream of fairytale weddings with celebrities, but I had other goals in life.

Our instruments for the List of Resolutions for WBR were much less esoteric but held the same divination vibes. Courtesy of Canva PRO.

In high school, I was confused by the concept of friendship. I’ve always chased the idea of having one best friend, and my efforts were rarely reciprocated so eventually, I grew protective layers. After all, I am a Scorpio. This rosey-cheeked mountain girl turned into an alternative teenager by necessity and wore her black shields with pride.

I was so goth, that I convinced my mum to let me order alternative clothing and candles via a paper catalogue with a mailing service. I felt so cool in my tribal tattoo tank top for photo day. I even wore two belts, and fishnets as gloves!

There was another alternative mountain girl in my class who knew someone who knew someone. Before I could think of an excuse not to go out, the few friends I had snowballed into a net of connections across different study streams and year levels. The fact that some of these friends-of-friends didn’t even know each other was troubling: a clear indication there were too many friends.

I didn’t need friends, I was a goth. I would have been a mall-goth if we had malls.

One of the key bonding moments of this giant franken-group of friends has been comparing the flowers and the bees stories our parents told us and realising we were all equally embarrassed by our mums and our shared young naivety.

I didn’t need to pretend to be a tormented soul too cool for school in front of that group of high school misfits. I could be too school for cool and study Latin for magick rituals on the day of Beltane at a relic temple. True story.

Thinking about it now, we all shared the same insecurities about family situations, university choices, sexuality, and values, and because of that, we treated each other with respect despite the awkwardness.

But the boys, who would randomly scream “Junk War!” and start a violent chase trying to hit each other’s groin areas haphazardly covered by whatever object they could grab.

Yeah, we were utterly uncool and tentative-alternative at best, but you know what they say:

Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime!

I hadn’t heard the war scream in a while but, that day in June, everyone came to say bye as I was about to go on an adventure Down Under with a return ticket in my pocket.

Insert laugh track as I left with high hopes, no books and no frills, in one suitcase.

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Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:

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Where are you from, and why?

Writing about my literal life journeys