Signs
The day before he ended things, you saw a bird fly into a highrise building and fall to its death.
Boom, the signs were so clear. How could you have missed this! Your brain begins mapping out every strange but subtle inconsistency from the past week, taking everyday slip ups and putting them to use.
‘Now that I think about it, I literally never spill my coffee’, or, ‘little holes started appearing in my socks’, or simply, ‘I kinda had a feeling.’ And maybe it’s the cynical part of me, but it looks like we all just need an excuse to not take the blame. Why hold the weight of the world when the universe can?
And yet, how often do you see such miraculous things? Is it really the powers that be? Or is it simply ourselves, tricking us into thinking we’re being given a pass from the other side?
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When it comes to universal signs, I tend to see a pattern in romantically active people:
The rarity of what they’ve experienced.
The timing of that experience, and how close it occurred to what it alludes to.
How personal it is to the person experiencing it.
We don’t all react to signs the same. While one person may see a yellow car and think of calling their college situationship, another may completely overlook the car all together. It’s all about what’s personal, signs that stick. We tend to cling to patterns that remind us of what we once had or have been ruminating already. And while it may seem silly, a lot of us put two and two together in the same way, regardless if we believe in superstitions or not.
The euphoric feelings of love & relationships seemingly amplifies whatever strange happenings occur in our day to day, in turn making our pre-existing emotions feel like a destiny being fulfilled.
In a poll given on Instagram, 52% of followers said they believed in signs fully, 38% said they pick & choose, and only 10% said they didn’t believe in signs at all. Now I know we’re only working with a small demographic of people, but the popular vote seems to be that signs are a powerful belief, regardless of how much we think they are actually real.
Some voters wrote back talking about their Costar, checking on signs through apps, while others talked about theories like “the invisible string.”
One voter, Luke, said “My last fling would talk about making plans in the FAR FUTURE. Ended shortly after.”
But would we benefit from acting on signs we saw? Should we run at the first sign of something treacherous, or foreboding? If all J names end in misery, why do we keep ignoring those names when they enter our life?
The pessimistic side of me wants to say that signs are bullshit. If the universe has a way of throwing warnings or premonitions at you, why not save so many lovers from unforgivable fates? Why let the freshly single girl enter an abusive relationship, blaming her lack of awareness for street numbers for getting stuck in a loveless situation? If it doesn’t rain on my wedding day does that mean we’ll get divorced? It seems that signs only existed when there was a gap of reasoning, like we are all searching for answers in the dating questionnaire. We blame ourselves for being unprepared, or naive, or un-cautious, so we turn to something to slap our self judgment on. The workings of the universe seems to be the first place we usually go.
However, in conversation with my friend Annie, we were describing how all summer long she hadn’t run into her ex even once;
“It’s kind of insane. Knowing where they go, and that they were there, how did we never run into them? That is what keeps me thinking, like, ‘oh, I’m not supposed to run into him. He’s not supposed to enter my life again.’ Thank God.”
Looking at her describing her reasoning made me want to change my mind. Because while it was clear she was connecting the dots, it honestly was quite miraculous how close we had gotten to running into him, but never actually did. Why, of all street corners, of all drunken nights, of all the chances, did the two of them never cross paths again?
And just like that, the magic of signs is kept alive again.
So what the hell, maybe spilling your coffee is a sign. Maybe that bird flying into the window was something to look out for. But if we pull back the tarot cards, tea leaves, and patterns in the stars, we’re left with a broken heart that needs fixing. No amount of signs could have prepared us for something we want so bad. I think if we start giving up the ghost and allowing our mistakes to lead us to be better, the signs can stay exactly what they are: just signs.
Hoping for a lucky penny before my next date :)
xoxo
