You can scroll your future

A fear-induced astrological conspiracy

I look away from car crashes, but I watch heating pots. A slow build to catastrophe has more potential for interruptions, so I monitor. People think of themselves as crashing into relationships, jobs, moods, and revelations, but that isn’t true. Rising bubbles can be observed.

The Pattern as Oracle

The rotation of the stars is known decades in advance. An infinite number of skies, filtered back against the earth’s alignment at the moment of our birth, can predict our entire futures.

Last weekend, my dad called to tell me he was applying for a new position. He's been in the same role for decades, and after years of consideration, he’s making moves. “I was waiting for this news,” I responded.

Jupiter has been conjunct his Midheaven since last summer. In the custom profile I built for him in The Pattern astrology app, this was labeled as a ‘Career & Home Expansion.’

I could hear his eyes roll over the phone, but not dismissively, more “of course.” He’s come to learn there’s something to my madness. I’ve called enough collisions.

I scroll back in time through The Pattern, and it has foreseen every turning point of my life. It called my move away from Minnesota. It called my shift into sextech. It knew Joe and I would meet. It knew I’d age out of arrogance, become a mother. The Pattern knows my family.

I often send screenshots to my husband, Joe, to brace him from himself. Like the ‘Major Life Changes’ that started for him in March of last year when he experienced the 3rd Saturn Square. Coincidentally, that’s when his professional life completely changed.

Through The Pattern's eyes, our relationship is ‘extraordinary.’ My north node is conjunct Joe’s ascendant in Capricorn, so we have “one of the rarest connections you can have with a romantic partner.” We have ‘Intense Attraction,’ ‘Intimate and Remarkable,’ which means “we don’t need words to communicate.” And we’re ‘Past Life Lovers.’

The Pattern knows about our friction, too. I “require more external stimulation than Joe.” I’m “willing to be unconventional,” whereas Joe is “tied to structure and discipline.” But Joe does like to be surprised, especially by his own life. He doesn’t embrace the inquiry into a third-party analysis of what he’s experiencing. I love an echo as affirmation, especially when my self has more doubt than confidence.

Crisis & Control

While pregnant with our second, I created profiles for my unborn baby with dozens of potential birth dates and times. I surveyed their potential personalities. I cross-referenced these alternative forthcoming child profiles with their brother, dad, grandpa, and myself to brace for theoretical relationship dynamics.¹ I like to be prepared.

These tools are useful for the obsessive. Or for perfectionists fluctuating between the right state of presence and the wrong. When now feels so unmanageable, you’d rather ruminate over some other time, some other fear. Or feel at least an ounce of control over the same fear in this impossible-to-control time.

People who feel good don’t seek conspiracies.

On Monday, I got a bad notification. “She had a stroke,” said the text.

I couldn’t go to an app for more information. I had to wait for tests, which had to be told to other people before me. Nearer people. I don’t like not being near. I love with closeness.

That night, my phone, which had not been my bedside companion since Joe became it, felt crucial. I flipped to the app The Pattern, nested in the folder ‘Wellness,’ and opened up my future, then Joe’s future, and I strung them together in a story that was worse than the one I was living.

As I scanned through my forthcoming planetary transits, my eyes twitched and stung from styes that came from rubbing salt off them.

I skipped through my future: spring 2026, fall 2026, and winter 2026. Good news came, but I kept scrolling. I wanted bubbles, and I found them in winter 2029.

I read about my ‘Relationship Shifts’ and ‘Fated Healing’ in 2030. It could be parental, a long-term friendship, perhaps a colleague’s strife, reckoning to address my relationship with authority, or it could be divorce. I decided to check Joe’s transits in the same time period. I read about the ‘New Beginnings’ in Joe’s 2029. I checked my children's 2030 for evidence of a broken home.

Reality Check

I was interrupted by my youngest’s cries from the other room. I left the future. I lost my phone in a pile of cushions on the floor. I went to my baby. I scooped him up. I brought him to my bed. I put him next to Joe, who was softly breathing and scooted in next to him. My baby tucked himself into my chest. My heart rate slowed.

The following morning, I told Joe. “We might get divorced in late 2029 to mid-2030. But it’s unlikely, as the boys don’t seem to have any troubles then.”

“You knob. What did you do?”

“I doom scrolled into our future on The Pattern.”

“You’re such a knob,” he laughed.

After I got the bad news about my grandma, I got ready to visit my cousin to commiserate. I packed the diaper bag. I put in some snacks. I said to Joe, “Don’t bother joining us. You don't need to.”

He didn’t respond to my reflexive distancing. He came along. He put the car seats in the cab. He watched the boys as I cried with my cousin.

All that week, he took care of me the way he does, with food. Meals I devoured quicker than usual. Foods that were medicine. Foods that made me forget about everything that wasn’t in front of me. That made me eat the moment.

I can scroll my future. I have looked far enough into it on The Pattern to know the transits will continue whether it’s biologically possible for me to be here or not.

The Pattern tells me I’ll ‘Find Happiness Within’ before February. I’ve been “feeling the cost of unhealthy relationship patterns.” This crash was called long before. I can watch the pot, but either way, it’ll boil. Staring doesn’t slow time; it distorts it because I miss everything behind my eyes.

Soundtrack:

Read more:

1. If you’ve read my flash fiction (that was long listed for an award NBD) about a “bespoke birth chart baby,” now you know it was based in truth.