waiting on a sign

Julie was so dog eared tired of bad relationships. She had tried everything from dating apps to blind dates to going out to clubs to meet people. It seemed that no matter how much she tried on her own, she just kept ending up with mismatches or total jerks. So finally in desperation, she decided to turn to the supernatural, no not Witch craft, but Astrology. She began keeping track of her Zodiac sign and looking at horoscopes. She began burning incense to clear out negative energy that was plaguing her life. She even hired someone to redecorate her home to make it more harmonious. She had been waiting for love for so long, she just wanted a sign.

   It had been over a year since Julie had been reorganizing her life. While she had not yet met Mr. Right, she did seem to have a new perspective on life. She had become more productive at work. Her Yoga and meditation classes were helping her connect with herself and people better, but no sign yet of her one true love, her soul mate. Despite this, she wasn’t going to give up. She kept track of her Astrological chart and followed her star alignment. Sometimes it would say money was in her future and others it would tell her to be more giving, but still no love. Then one early fall day she woke up and looked at her chart and there it was; October-would be the month. According to all of the signs, her stars would be in alignment all month and it would be most likely for her to find love, she was elated, September please move on, and let October come. She meditated even harder than she had done before. She took an herbal bath to cleanse her body. She worked to build more positive energy by engaging in more random acts of kindness, all the while waiting for the month to end. Then as if the world had slowed to a crawl, she went to bed on September the 30th and woke up on October 1st, the new month and the time when she was most likely to find love.

   At 6am on October 1st, Julie was laying in bed when the most horrible racket she had ever heard got her out of bed with a chill going down her spine. The vibration could be felt in her teeth and the noise, oh the head pounding noise, it hurt to even hear it this early. As she fell out of bed into her slippers, she looked out her 3rd story window and below was a constructing crew from the city water department hammering away at the pavement with a Jack Hammer. How could she bear this? Julie quickly went to her living room and tried to look at her charts, but she couldn’t think because of the racket. All she could do was to get a shower and get dressed. As quickly as she could she slipped out of the building and went to the corner to catch her bus. As she was walking down the sidewalk, a large caution sign was on the side walk and a detour arrow pointed around the road work. She just winced because it was too early, as she walked by the sign, a man in a white hard hat was standing behind the sign looking at a blueprint, as she walked past the detour arrow, she bumped him and kept going, not giving it a second thought. All she wanted to do was to get to her favorite coffee shop then to work and forget about this horrible morning.

   The first day of October didn’t go the way Julie had hoped that it would, nor did the second or the third day. The people from the water department were out in front of her building for 3 mind numbing days. If it wasn’t for the fact that she had to work, she believed that she would have gone crazy. Each day, she would pass by the detour sign that was prominent on the sidewalk and each day the same man with the white had would be there, but she just kept her head down and moved on. By the end of the week, the work was done and they people had moved on. Julie was elated and was glad to finally get some rest. She could now meditate in peace and focus on finding the love she so longed for. Late in the evening, she lit her incense sticks and began her meditation routine in peace and quiet. She chanted for over two hours well into the late evening then looked at the time and knew she had to get herself together. She was supposed to meet friends at 8 for dinner and drinks. So she cleaned up and got dressed, before she headed out, she looked at her horoscope and found that it said a sign would soon present itself to her. She was elated to find out such good news. So out the door and out of the building with an upbeat perspective on life, she felt like she couldn’t fail.

   Julie got a rideshare and made it to the restaurant with plenty of time to spare, she paid the driver and headed towards the entrance of the restaurant when she was confronted with a person twirling a sign, she stepped back and tried to get around them, but it seemed like a comedy of errors. Finally, she walked back 6 feet and looked at the sign; it said opportunity is just ahead. Then it had some quip about an investment that she ignored. She finally got the person to move, then walked around them to the restaurant entrance, Just as she was about to open the door, it flew open and someone came rushing out, Julie caught herself and said a few choice words, but the guy didn’t seem to notice her as he was carrying a box overfilled with plates and bags of food. He simply said sorry as he walked by, she just gave him a snaky retort to watch where he was going. Despite the incident, she went inside and met her friends, she enjoyed dinner and drinks and relaxing, then as her friends begin to leave, she was left alone looking out the window with a glass of wine, watching the traffic go by.

   The rest of Julie’s weekend went by pretty much uneventful. She slept in Saturday morning, watched all of her favorite shows prerecorded from the week. Her only company was her cat and a bunch of sugary treats that she really didn’t need, but she was feeling depressed, maybe her horoscope was wrong, maybe her stars didn’t line up. How could she be sure? She decided to go visit a friend that she knew was more into this kind of thing than her. She put the calories away and gave her friend a call. Her friend told her to come over and bring her charts with her. She would help her go over it and see if she had made a mistake. Julie got herself pulled together and put her Astrological charts into a backpack. She headed out of the building and down to the bus stop. As the bus was approaching, she noticed a sign on the side, had a woman holding money and said good fortune in on its way. She didn’t pay much attention and went to get on the bus when it stopped, only to run head long into somebody. The man said excuse me, Julie didn’t look to see him, she was tangled up in her backpack straps and just said yeah okay as she let him pass, but then she felt as if was experiencing Déjà vu . She summarily dismissed it and got on the bus once she was untangled. As she looked back, the man had disappeared down the street. She just sat down and began to ponder if she would ever find love as the bus moved away from the curb to take her to see her friend.

   Julie arrived at her stop and got off. She had been pondering her situation all the way over here. Her friend was waiting for her when she arrived at her apartment. Julie took off her back pack and laid out her charts and horoscope book. Together the two of them spent a couple of hours going back over everything Astrological sign and alignment that they could imagine. When it was done, they came to the same conclusion, Julie should be in a perfect time to find her soul mate, but her time was waning. She had already reached her apex and was on the decline. She stuck out her lip in frustration, maybe this is just another dead end, and maybe there isn’t a sign to point me to the man of my dreams. Her friend scolded her; she gave her a friendly lecture on reading the signs and trusting them. She told her that she lived her life by Astrology and that it was her bread and butter. She reminded her how much better she had done since she embraced the practice and listened to what she knew to be sound advice from her Astrological studies. Julie was comforted, but not too enthusiastic. She just hoped that the sign she was looking for would show up soon, perhaps it would just hit her all at once. She had no idea how right she was.

   The weekend passed and Julie held out hope that she would find what or who she had been looking for. Monday went by, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. It seemed like a slog to get through the week as October seemed to be flying by. She woke up Thursday morning to a blustery day. The wind was picking up and she knew it was going to be a bad hair day because of all of the static in the air. She didn’t need Astrology to tell her to put her up in a bun. On with her morning routine, getting shocked by her cat 6 times as it rubbed up against her wanting attention. Flats today for sure, no heels in this weather, with blustery wind almost always came precipitation. All she could do is hope for the best. She made it to work none the worse for ware. The weather did clear up but the wind was just wild. She made it through the day and thought of not coming in tomorrow; she wondered if she called in sick on Friday would they miss her too terribly. As she left the building, she headed to the bus stop just down the block. Just as she got to the bus stop, a man was walking towards her in a dress shirt with his tie tucked inside his shirt. Under his arm he had a bunch of rolled up papers. As they two of them were about to converge on the bus stop, the wind howled behind Julie and the next thing she knew, everything went black. She could feel a ringing in her ears and distant sounds of someone calling out to her miss, miss are you okay? Then she came too with a terrible pounding in her head. As she regained her senses, she realized that she was lying on the sidewalk with a jacket under her head. A small crowd of people had gathered around her and leaning over her was the man who had been carrying the rolled up papers. As she began to focus, it hit her like a ton of bricks, or like the large cardboard sign that had flown off of the bus and clipped her in the back of the head. The man over her was so familiar and yet not. She realized that she had seen him several times this months and it came to her through her throbbing head what had happened. This was the man that had been around the corner, and coming out the door, the signs were there and she just didn’t recognize them. A tall dark haired gentleman with blues eyes who was now holding her as he waited for the paramedics to arrive. He asked her again was she ok, she just squeezed his hand tightly and smiled, as she looked into his piercing blue eyes and said I am going to be just fine.