2010

I don't know what your 2010 was like. In case it didn't live up to your expectations you can take solace in this free card which I found at a café in Vienna. I like its simple and erm...subtle message: 
I gave one to S2 from my book club buddies as her year included a rather traumatic break-up and she was feeling rather low before Christmas.

The end of the year traditionally is the time to look back and reminisce and newspapers are full of Jahresrückblicke here.  Magazines all include horoscopes for the coming year and I decided to keep the 2010 edition to compare it with what actually happened.

What were aquarii promised? Brigitte's horoscope is very vague and leaves much open for interpretation. There's a lot of talk of "new impulses" and "challenges". If I "examine my expectations (...) nothing stands in the way of passion between January and summer." Okay...where was I when that happened, I wonder?! Jolie, on the other hand mentions that my love-life will be uneventful until the end of July, promising a hot date with "the twin Brad Pitt was separated from at birth" in August. Just as well Brad Pitt's not my type as - surprise - I did not bump into his twin. Maxima hints at "a hot summer flirt with a libra which might end in a longer liaison". Nope. It also said that "a lively gemini" will bring a new boost to my life at the end of April. Hmmm. I'm trying to remember if the gemini in my life (my Mum, the Pampered Princess, Mademoiselle, MC...) boosted me in any particular way. All three horoscopes say something along the lines of 2010 setting the course for great career chances. That, at least was true as I got a promotion.

My verdict - just as hit-and-miss as I've always thought and I'm sure there is some aquarius out there for whom one of these horoscopes was 100% accurate.

In reality, 2010 was quite an eventful year, not necessarily only with the kind of events I'd wished for, such as the death of one of my grandmothers and great-aunts only 2 weeks apart. These sad events actually did bring about a "challenge". By speaking at my grandmother's funeral (and later at my aunt's - "a vocation late in life", as Chiquita called it), I had created my own private go-to moment to remember later on whenever something seems daunting and impossible.

It was also a year of minor discoveries, such as that of my blood type (0+) after 38 years and the epiphany that someone appreciated me a lot more than I had till then assumed.

Bring on 2011 (never mind the horoscopes)!