Telling people I am a Libra, is really just a short and lazy way of telling people I am unable to make decisions. I always crumble under pressure, I see the good in everyone even if it’s not there and I will compromise myself often just to please others. Telling people I am a Libra is my way of not telling them everything about me.
“Why do you date shitty men?”
“Because I’m a Libra…and spent most of my life watching my parents drown in their toxicity.”
“Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”
“Because I’m a Libra…and I’m afraid that if I piss people off they will abandon me.”
I didn’t ask to be born on September 24th, 1991. Hell, I didn’t ask to be born at all, but here we are. Constantly trying to make sense of everything. For many years, Walter Mercado was my God. I feel dirty saying those words and that’s because, after 11 years of every woman in my family sprinting to the T.V while holding their cafecito and wearing their rolos as soon as we heard his voice, we moved to the U.S and my mom found her God. Astrology quickly became the devil’s work and I had to pretend not to be excited when Walter came on T.V. I lost my home country, Walter Mercado and soon later, I started to lose my accent.
“Why do you sound white?”
“Because I’m a Lib- wait, how’s a Dominican person supposed to sound like?” I would snark back at my friends.
Why does everything have to be named? I often wondered.
Why does everything have to mean something?
Why can’t everything just be nothing and everything at the same time?
Now I understand why astrology exists. It’s the same reason religion exists. Which is the same reason atheism exists. Which is the same reason spirituality exists and the same reason any concept you can possibly think of exists: We need to explain everything. When someone rebels against one theory, another theory is born. We have been dividing each other since the beginning of time when the first and only hypothesis existed and I bet you if I ask anyone about any of the ideas mentioned above, they are all the one true notion at least to one of them.
In reality, the truth is just standing there, in its own deserted island where it was left, jumping up and down, flailing its arms, and sending smoke signals hoping to get noticed.
That whole view alone is exhausting.
All I know for sure is this:
The next time I meet someone, I will look into their eyes and say:
“I’m Carolina, and I’m a Libra.”
Con mucho, mucho amor.
Carolina Abreu is a Dominican writer based in NYC.
“I look to create a space of vulnerability, self-love, liberation and acceptance through my writing. I look to inspire my generation and the future ones to believe in their authenticity while watering the roots planted by their ancestors and the ones they’ve planted themselves; to take the strength of the past and their present voice and use it to create a new path that is paved with inclusivity and kindness.
My work is inspired by my perceptions and interpretations of what surrounds me. By the confusion of planting my own roots on foreign land and never quite being able to call it home. By the uncomfortable feeling that being asked if I “think in English or Spanish?” brings on as opposed to being asked what I think. By being a woman. By the times I fell deeply in love and the times I was forced to fall out of it. By my desire to heal others and identify with their pain and finally, by my understanding that alone, we are in chaos but together we can do it all.”
IG: @ughvolution
ughvolution@gmail.com
