Who am I? Thoughts by an Aries: Part Deux

Reader alert: If you haven’t read my January 14 entry, this might be picking up in the middle of my astrological crisis.

In April 2003, my friend Amber and I organized a trip up to Soldotna to go to the only tattoo place we knew of on the Kenai Peninsula. We were both going to get Aries tattoos. It had been the same plan we discussed all year long in weight training.

Now Amber and I are different people. We both grew up in Anchor Point (AP for life!), but have taken different paths in our lives. She became a vegan as a freshman in college, but I still embraced cheese and other animal products. She has two beautiful children, lives on the East Coast, has a garden, and is a very talented artist (here’s a link to her Esty site).

As you all know, I love meat, enjoy my dogs and grow only the plants that can fit in our apartment. And I don’t think anyone would want to buy any of my creations on the Internet.
But Amber and I have known each other since kindergarten, and that goes a long way. Especially because (at the time) we were both Aries too.

When we arrived at the tattoo parlor, I went first. Amber was still sketching out what she wanted, and I already had brought diagrams with me. My high school boyfriend Marcus went with us, and so did Amber’s best friend Angela. Afterward, we went and ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant that had an orca painted on the outside of the building.

The next day at school, we’d make sure to keep our tats covered with lotion so they’d heal properly. Amber always said that “tats love the Lubriderm.”

After high school, Amber and I haven’t seen much of each other — unless we visited home at the same time and happened to run into each. We are both enjoying our lives, and the different paths we are led down.

So my tattoo isn’t about my astrological symbol — it represents my memories with an old friend that I don’t see very often. Much like my frog tattoo that I got with Nyla, who I don’t see nearly enough.

I’d like to think my silly vegan friend thinks the same thing.

Who am I? Thoughts by an Aries

There’s been a lot of hubbub around the latest news of the zodiac signs changing from a study done by the Minnesota Planetarium Society. Apparently the modern zodiac is wrong because the moon’s gravity has caused Earth’s axis to alter, which changes the position of the stars in the sky. Now all hell has broken loose: A former Virgo could now be a Leo, and now a would-be Capricorn could be a Ophiuchus — which I’m not even going to get into.

But that’s not really the issue at hand. I have a bigger problem that I share with many others who embraced their 18-year-old legal freedom too soon: I have an Aries tattoo.

At the time I thought I was getting something that stood for who I am, or should I say how I envisioned myself. As an Aries, my symbol is the ram. I am a warrior ruled by Mars with my element being fire. I am impatient, assertive, honest and willing to accept any challenge.

Now I find I could possibly be a Pisces: a fish that’s ruled by Jupiter and Neptune, with my element being water. I’m supposed to be peaceful, religious, co-dependant, a follower and tend to escape into a fantasy world.

You can’t get much different than that.

Now I could choose to adopt the Western astrologers defense to why the signs haven’t changed (which is that Western dates are based off of the solstices and equinoxes, so the zodiac dates don’t change), or I could do some soul searching to figure out what this all means to me.

I’ll admit, it would be easy to shrug off this debate, but I’m curious to find out if knowing the characteristics of my sign at a young age made me want to aspire to the description. Hence the reason for my tattoo on my left shoulder blade.

So stay tuned for my next entry. Will it be “I am Sara, Aries,” or “Stupid Pisces with Aries Tattoo”? Find out next time on Hansen Hodgepodge!

Now that's a bloody mary...