I Was Rejected Today, and That’s Okay

I was rejected today.

And that’s okay. I’ll get over it.

But it’s been a hard and very long day, and on days like this I sometimes find myself wondering: What exactly is in store for me?

Whenever I start thinking that way, I turn to astrology. It has always been a comfort to me.

I know my Big Three. My Sun is in Libra, my rising sign is Gemini, and my Moon is in Scorpio. And yes, all that that entails.

My relationship with astrology goes back much further than casually checking a horoscope.

In my early twenties, I took an astrology class at a local technical college and absolutely fell in love with the entire discipline. My instructor was a woman in her sixties who taught us how to manually read a natal chart.

This was before you could simply type your birth information into an app and have a beautiful chart appear two seconds later. We learned how to actually work through the chart and, more importantly, how to understand what all those planets, houses, signs, and aspects meant together.

She taught us why knowing your full birth chart was so important and why your Sun sign was only one small piece of the picture.

Suddenly, I understood why some of those Libra horoscope readings I had been reading my entire life didn't sound anything like me.

Yes, my Sun is in Libra. But my chart contains a lot more than Libra. I have significant Scorpio and Virgo influences as well, and those placements can change how I experience things and how certain astrological interpretations resonate with me.

That class sent me straight down the rabbit hole.

I bought several books on astrology and tried my best to learn everything I could. For a while, I was even able to read charts for other people and share insights with them.

It felt a little like magic.

Unfortunately, I was also a young mother with two small children. I simply didn't have the time to dedicate myself to studying astrology at the level my instructor had. Life got busy, as life tends to do.

But I never stopped learning.

Whenever I could, I learned more about planets, houses, signs, and aspects and how astrology might help me not only navigate the world but understand the people around me a little better.

And apparently, somewhere along the way, astrology found its way into my collecting habits too.

To this day, I am immediately attracted to anything with an astrological or zodiac theme. You'll find zodiac-inspired figures in my personal collection, in the shop, on my streams, and scattered across my shelves.

One of my current favorites is Pucky. I especially love the zodiac collection, with its tiny interpretations of each of the signs. Molly has some wonderful zodiac pieces as well.

And if Pop Mart isn't your thing, there are plenty of other adorable interpretations of the zodiac. Kuromi has appeared in a Sanrio zodiac plush bag-pendant collection that is ridiculously cute.

Then there are the Emma zodiac beans: chubby, shiny little figures with their own wonderfully weird interpretations of each sign. They're exactly the sort of thing that makes me stop scrolling and say, Well, obviously I need to see what Libra looks like.

Maybe that's part of what I love about collecting.

Sometimes we choose things simply because they're beautiful or strange or cute. But sometimes we choose things because they remind us of ourselves. They connect us to an old interest, a memory, a story, or some tiny piece of our identity.

For me, astrology is one of those threads.

It connects the twenty-something-year-old woman sitting in an astrology class, carefully learning how to read a natal chart, to the woman I am today, surrounded by books, tiny creatures, zodiac figures, and probably far too many little trinkets.

And on a difficult day, when I've been rejected and I'm wondering what comes next, I find myself reaching for that thread again.

Maybe I'll pull out my chart.

Maybe I'll see what the planets are doing.

Maybe I'll wonder what the universe has planned next.

Or maybe I'll just sit here with my tiny zodiac creatures and remember that I've had plenty of chapters in my life that I couldn't see coming.

So, fellow collectors, I'm curious:

What theme always gets you?

Is it the zodiac? Cats? Cryptids? Mushrooms? Clowns? A particular character or color? Something nostalgic from your childhood?

What is the thing that keeps finding its way into your collection, whether you planned it or not?