#6: capricorn season ('23-'24)

new year, knew you

Jan 19, 2024

Hi! Thanks for being here. Tomorrow is the first day of Aquarius season. It’s been a rough Capricorn season — stopping Wellbutrin has totally derailed the grindset I’m usually in during this month. I still completed my big 2024 astrology gcal though, and I’ve been successfully navigating having three jobs now. I even read 1 (one) book! Could a depressed person do all of that?

Here are some takeaways and faves from Capricorn season this past month. You can find an overview of Aquarius season’s upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter. If you’d like to support my writing, you can subscribe, like, share, etc via the cute pink buttons throughout the piece.

hny <3

I love New Year’s now. I felt pretty ambivalent about it before three years ago, before New Year’s Day became my sobriety date in 2021. (I’m three years clean and sober now!) At some point I’ll write about the fucking sad New Year’s Eve I had in 2020, the last night I drank. I’ve been determined to have better New Year’s Eves ever since — and I have. This past one, I helped a friend load up her moving van, Zoom hosted my home group’s meeting, baked brownies and cleaned, then went to my ex’s NYE housewarming gathering. The party wasn’t what I was expecting — it wasn’t what she was anticipating either — but it was a nice time regardless. She made little beaded pipe cleaner bracelets for everyone who wanted one, with a word that she associated with them. She was pleased with herself for the one she made me (and I think it’s great too, of course).

It’s partly a reference to the blog drama that I (not so) secretly love that I got caught up in — a situation in which I was right about a lot of things — and partly an acknowledgment that I am, in fact, always right. Now I have a bracelet to back that up. :)

On New Year’s Day — my sobriety date when I hit three years, can’t remember if I’ve mentioned — I helped a friend move several states away to a city I’ve never been to. It was surprisingly fun and it went so smoothly. Her beagles were on their best behavior, nothing broke in the van, and we didn’t get into a bad car accident, which is usually my biggest anxiety with road trips. We didn’t see much of the city but I liked what we saw, and I’m looking forward to going back to visit.

Helping her move away is one of a few reasons I’ve been in my friendship feels this past month. More of my close friends live in different states than in my city now. I’m good at staying in touch with people and I love a phone call, but I love being able to see and hug friends a little more than that. I’ll write more about all of this sometime as well, but it’s hard being so friendship-pilled when it often feels like your friends give the “appropriate” amount of space and time to friendship and you do not.

The cultural script for friendship as an adult says that one’s family and romantic partner (singular) should come before one’s friends. I’ve oriented my life toward my friends though, and anyways my family sucks and I don’t have or want partners right now. It’s a very queer approach to relationships in the general sense, to being in relationship to others. I know my friends do love and care about me, but having a big capacity for friendship, and showing care in ways I want to receive it but don’t as often, can leave me feeling like I care too much. It can make me feel like my friends don’t want to be as close to me as I want to be to them, or that they don’t think we’re as close as I do. It’s such a vulnerable feeling! I’ve been swimming in it since the beginning of the month, so between that and the Wellbutrin withdrawal I haven’t quite had the gentle start to the new year that I was hoping for.

cap szn confession

This is a relevant time to confess that Capricorn is my least favorite sign. Sorry y’all! I like the signs that people typically consider the worst: I’m a Gemini apologist because I’m a Gemini rising and I love and have loved many Geminis. I like Scorpios even though they don’t really like me — I haven’t been able to become better friends with many despite some effort, and I don’t know the last time I slept with a Scorpio. (I was trying to hook up with this Scorpio a little over a year ago, but we got off on the wrong foot when I saw their hands were red and insensitively asked if they had been chopping beets or something — they have Raynaud’s, I found out then — and the date went downhill from there when they spent about twenty-five minutes on the phone with their sponsee, before coming back inside to make out with me with a nicotine pouch in their mouth. They realized they had forgotten to spit it out first when I asked why my mouth felt numb a few minutes later, and I left soon after, pissed and intensely craving cigarettes.) No, Capricorn is the only sign that makes me hesitate when I see it listed in someone’s app profile. I know I wrote that judging people by their sun sign was out for 2024 — that you should judge people by their moon or Venus sign instead — but Capricorn is the exception to that for me.

With a lot of Capricorns around my age though it’s likely that it’s not only their Sun placement that’s in the sign. Uranus and Neptune were both in Capricorn for years around when I was born, Saturn was for a few years too, and then in any given astrological season I think there’s a 1 in 3 chance that Mercury is in the same sign as the Sun and a 1 in 5 chance that the same is true of Venus. So if you meet a Capricorn in their late twenties to mid thirties, it’s not unlikely that half of their fucking chart is in the sign. That means the Cap energy can be very present, and there are some seriously offputting traits that can bring: stubborn, overly-serious, cold, unemotional, arrogant, a workaholic. You could say that I’m not one to talk, as a Virgo — perfectionistic, overly-critical, picky, judgmental, anxious, a people pleaser. But do you see this bracelet I’m wearing? It says I’m right, so.

I can admit that my wariness of Capricorns is mostly because I had a truly awful manager a few years back who was one. I’m not immune to having my view of a sign skewed by bad experiences with one person. In that same way, I’m hesitant to ever seriously date a Sag again. It’s not that I’m not willing to be open-minded about Capricorns though. I’ve met and become friends with some great ones, and I’ve had fun sex with a few. I’m actually hoping to hear back from a Capricorn at the moment but I think she’s moved on.

Anyway, it’s more about the fact that there’s incompatibility between me and Capricorns. As a Virgo I’m supposed to be aligned with them according to practically every astrology site — I disagree though! — but I think all of my Libra placements contribute to a feeling of not being able to vibe with them. But, like, how well can I actually vibe with people who don’t know how to.... I’m joking.. mostly...

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faves ♡

🎵 “Modern Woman” - Eliza McLamb

I’ve had this banger on repeat since she released it the other day (on her birthday — told you I can be open-minded about Capricorns!) I do have to hit the DMV, and my electric bill is due today. Her album, Going Through It, just came out today and I already know I’m going to do an unhealthy amount of listening to it. I included another fav from this album, “Anything You Want,” in my Scorpio Season newsletter. I’m a fan of her longform writing here on Substack too, especially this essay about her relationship with her mother who has bipolar. I, like the friend she mentions at the beginning, have the “less bad” kind. It was interesting to read about the impact of a loved one’s bipolar disorder because I’ve often wondered how mine has affected people close to me. The piece is candid and compassionate, and I was caught off guard by how it made me empathize with my own mom.

🎶 “We Don’t Talk” - Phoebe Go

This song worked its way into my head the first time I heard it and became the song I’d play first in the playlist I added it to. It’s hard to say what I like about it — I don’t really get the lyrics but I can relate to them, and I can’t quite name the feeling that comes up for me but I like the feeling.

📗 This Ragged Grace - Octavia Bright

This is the only book I read this past month, and wow! It was recommended by the woman behind brutal recovery on Instagram, whose writing and recommendations I get a lot out of. And that’s truly been the case with this book. It’s described as “a memoir of recovery and renewal,” and I love that so much. Renewal — yes! Such a fitting concept to accompany recovery, and that theme shines through in this book. It’s about the first seven years of her recovery from alcohol addiction, as well as the simultaneous progression of her father’s Alzheimer’s. I’ve written down so many good quotes from it. This one about recovery stood out to me, especially as it relates to my starting to write again:

If addiction is rooted in the will to forget, recovery is an act of remembering — a slow reconnection with the parts of yourself that slipped out of reach while you hungered for escape

And this made me laugh because the same thing happened for me:

The shift from counting days [of sobriety] to counting months was a powerful thing that took me seconds to take for granted

I perked up when I got to the chapter about her fourth year of sobriety, wondering if it would provide me with a glimpse of what to expect this year. The book cover is also this pleasing, vibrant shade of green that I like looking at. I could write more about this book, but I’ll conclude by saying it’s worth reading especially if you’re also in recovery. If you’re a local friend, I’ll let you borrow it if you want :)

🚂 taking the train

What a great way to travel! My options for returning home after helping my friend move were flying or taking the train, and that was an easy choice for me. The train is great! It’s roomier and usually less crowded overall than a plane, you can get up and go for a walk through the cars if you’d like, and if you have a window seat you can simply sit and watch the pretty landscape pass by. That’s what I did the whole ride — just listened to music and looked out the window. What a dreamy day! Something that was so sweet about the ride was how many people waved at us. This happened as we pulled out of the stations of course, but also as the train passed by people’s houses and through towns. Take a train ride and see folks of all ages waving at you and the other passing strangers aboard, and try to tell me people aren’t fundamentally good and oriented towards kindness and connection!

🦋 Albanese mini gummi butterflies

These cute little gummies are so me coded. I’ve been trying to be more intentional about avoiding dairy, and the last place I was making regular exceptions was in my candy snacking. Peanut butter M&Ms are just so good! I’ve switched to bars of dark chocolate with almonds to satisfy chocolate cravings though, and these little butterflies satisfy my general sugar and chewy candy cravings. The flavors are yummy and the gummies have the right amount of chewiness. I’m going to flutter on over to the store and pick up another pack.