Decisions, Decisions

I've been looking to the stars so they can tell me exactly what I want to hear.

It might surprise you, given how many bad tattoos I have, that I struggle with decisions.

I think my impulsivity is actually a symptom of my decision dysphoria. Big decisions torture me so incessantly, that when an easier one appears in the form of an instagram ad for overpriced cat hammocks, or a brightly lit tattoo shop on St. Mark’s Place late at night, I don’t think, I just march in with an unverified google image of a constellation, and ask a stranger to permanently emblazon it on my ankle.

(I got this particular tattoo covered up with a horseshoe a few years ago, after a stranger in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous kindly informed me that the constellation looked like a penis)

My skin is one thing, but where to live, where to work, and when to break up with someone are another. I once spent three hours trying to convince someone I was breaking up with that it was the right thing to do, for both of us, even though he might not be able to see it that way at the time! Another breakup happened only after I polled a group of my friends about whether or not I should dump him (unanimous yes). Another one almost happened, but when I got to his apartment, ready to call it quits, he had baked me a pie and lit a bunch of candles and I texted my friend and said “now I don’t know what I should do” and she told me I didn’t have to do anything if I wasn’t ready to.

I tend to self-soothe by constantly asking everyone else what they think I should do, which makes sense because there’s a conversation between mercury and saturn in the 9th house of my birth chart.

I just got my birth chart read because I had to decide whether or not to take a job that I knew in my gut wasn’t right for me BUT other people thought otherwise AND no one is working right now AND what if it could be the final assistant job, after the seven or eight other assistant jobs, that finally breaks me through to a promotion I have ALWAYS wanted which I don’t even really know if I want anymore because I spent so long using work to fill my validation void and now that I love myself I’ve realized the industry I’m in really only caters to egomaniacs and people who hate themselves enough to eat shit for the egomaniacs BUT I love art and storytelling and the way they make meaning out of the human experience SO maybe I should… No. I said no to the job. I committed. But it was HARD. It’s like, all I ever want is control over my own life, and then the second I get it I’m like SOMEONE ELSE PLEASE CHOOSE!!!!!

I joined AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) when I was 20 and the main thing that kept me going back (besides the cigarettes) was this concept of a sponsor - one’s own personal guide through the twelve steps, which I took to mean one’s own personal, constantly on-call magic 8 ball. I would ask my sponsor to tell me what to do in every single situation throughout the day. I’d ask her if I should go to a party at a bar or if it would be too triggering, if I should date yet, and if I shouldn’t, why not and what’s the point of being sober if you can’t have a boyfriend, like - when I was drinking I couldn’t land one due to chronic blackout bed wetting and a tendency to drunk-rage-text but now it’s been thirty days since I lost all my belongings and dignity overnight so where’s my love story and did I really have to do my service commitment cleaning up cigarette butts outside the meeting because it felt kind of embarrassing to be sweeping the sidewalk at night wearing the tight mini dresses and heels I’d consistently wear to meetings in hopes of landing an AA boyfriend.

I remember one day texting my sponsor that I didn’t feel like going to my friend’s birthday dinner but I said I would go, so what should I do? That’s when she finally said ENOUGH and told me I needed to make SOME decisions for myself… rude.

It can be sooooo relaxing to be told what to do and when to do it. It’s the perfect way to avoid any introspection or actual responsibility. I don’t believe in hell - like, the hades kind - but I completely get the appeal of having to run all of your life choices by one, clear test: is this a sin or not? Unfortunately, reducing everything to a dichotomy tends to trigger my OCD and self-loathing, and when I hate myself, my decisions get REALLY bad, like worse than penis tattoo bad.

Alas, my battle against the unknowable future continues and I no longer have a sponsor. But one of the perks of spending over a decade in twelve step programs is that when I need existential guidance, I have a Roladex of people to reach out to and most of them have a psychic on hand.

I once received a tarot reading by a friend-endorsed Astrologist, and their insight was INCREDIBLE. The cards pulled were all about letting go of old practices that no longer served me and taking steps towards being more authentic to myself. At the time, I was drinking again after years of sobriety. I opened a bottle of wine alone in my apartment after the reading, totally validated! I just knew the old values and practices of being sober and trying to live a healthier life were NOT working, and getting drunk that night would be WAY more authentic to myself!

This is not evidence against the efficacy of astrological help, by the way - it’s the opposite. That night, after the Tarot zoom, I experienced a deep, dark rock bottom with my mental health and the next day, I was desperate enough to seek help, beyond the stars, from licensed medical professionals and my family and friends. I’ve struggled with many tough decisions in the time since, made a lot of counterproductive choices, and I’ve had to evaluate and then reevaluate my relationship to substances many times, but I’ve remained consistently committed to letting go of old, unproductive patterns to make room for my authentic self to grow. So, YEAH I THINK THE STARS WERE ON TO SOMETHING!!!!

And it’s totally fine if you don’t think that! Humans need guideposts to help us make sense of how little time we have here and what we’re supposed to do with it and for me, whatever the stars and planets are up to and whatever they were up to on the afternoon of February 27th, 1992 when I was born, is helpful and fun to think about!

The most helpful aid I’ve found, by far, in the decision making process, besides horoscopes and harassing my friends, is self-compassion. A major decision almost always involves a separation of some kind - separating from people, places, things, letting go of old routines and whatever we thought our life was going to look like. My therapist tells me separation is hard for anyone with attachment issues and it can throw us into life or death survival mode even if the decision does not have life or death consequences! It’s hard and complicated and stressful to commit to someone or to choose not to, or to commit to a major career change or choose not to, or to commit to sobriety or choose not to, and it should be hard and complicated and stressful to decide whether or not to permanently ink something onto your body but even if you end up with a phallic symbol on your ankle - there are options, and I promise you it will be okay.