Memoirs of a Twenty Something: From Psychic to Present
Over the next few weeks, we are reflecting on my past year of life. (don't skip these posts pls!!!)
A Note to Start: The Birthday Series
For some reason, I’m really excited about my birthday this year. Not in the “throw a huge party” kind of way I’ve leaned on before, where the planning served as a distraction from the emotional weight that tends to show up around this time. This year feels different. I’m not drifting away from it like I’ve done in the past; I’m actually full-blown excited.
I think it’s because I’m using these weeks leading up to my birthday as a time for reflection and refinement. Twenty-seven has felt like a strange mix of uncomfortable and comfortable. Maybe that’s Saturn return energy, maybe it’s just life. Either way, I’m genuinely looking forward to what twenty-eight has in store: the changes, the resurgences, and even the stillness.
So over the next few weeks leading up to my birthday, I’ll be sharing a series of personal essays focused on the themes, questions, and quiet revelations that have shaped me this year. (And if you’re thinking, “Wait, aren’t all your blog posts personal essays?” — kinda. Sometimes they’re born out of conversations or observed patterns. But these? These are just me.)
Let’s call this the birthday series. 🎈
After years of avoiding the truth, I’ve finally accepted it: I feel things. And I feel them big.
It’s not a weakness, and it’s definitely not a superpower; it just is. When something makes me happy, it’s like my whole chest swells with light. When something hurts, it aches deep in my heart like a physical weight. These aren’t things to be ashamed of, and they don’t make me better or worse than anyone else. They’re just… me.
Astrologers would probably say, “Duh.” I’m a Cancer sun, which basically reads: emotional, tender, and yes, even a little dramatic. Like the crab I’m supposedly modeled after, I tend to do one of two things when big, uncomfortable feelings roll in: I either pinch or I hide.
Now, I bet you’re thinking, “Robyn, that does not seem like you at all.” But hear me out.
A lot of my biggest pinch-or-hide moments don’t come out of nowhere, and they aren’t often; they’re usually triggered by me slipping into emotional detective mode. Or worse, full-blown psychic mode.
See, I’ve been told most of my life that I have incredible intuition. That I can sense a shift in tone, energy, or body language before anyone else even notices. And sometimes, yes, that awareness has felt like a gift. But other times, it’s felt like I’m playing emotional charades with myself: overanalyzing a shrug, rereading a text, picking apart a pause in conversation.
Because when you think you can read everyone else’s emotions, it becomes incredibly easy to lose track of your own.
Sometimes, I joke that I grew up believing I was a little psychic—blame That’s So Raven. I genuinely thought that if I paid close enough attention, I could predict what people were feeling or what was about to happen next. And in a way, it did feel like a superpower.
But just like Raven’s visions, my “emotional forecasts” weren’t always accurate. They were often flashes rooted in anxiety, fear, or my own unresolved feelings. And the more I relied on those flashes to guide how I responded to people or situations, the more I found myself off track. Like Raven crashing through a room mid-vision, I’d act based on something that wasn’t even real.
It made things confusing. Not just for me, but for the people around me too. Because I wasn’t always reacting to what was happening, I was reacting to what I thought was happening. And when you live in a loop of prediction instead of presence, your own emotions start to feel unreliable.
Reflecting on this past year, I could probably count my pinch-or-hide moments on both hands—which I actually think is a win. 🤷🏽♀️ It means I’m learning how to ride the waves of my big emotions instead of letting them sweep me out to sea every time.
Still, I can’t help but look back at moments where I was so far from the present. Instead of responding to what was in front of me, I was tangled in anxious thoughts, convinced they were clues about what was coming next. Like if someone didn’t text back right away, or their tone shifted slightly, I’d start mentally scanning for the emotional earthquake I was sure was around the corner.
Crazy when you say it out loud, right? But in those moments, it didn’t feel crazy, it felt like preparedness. Like if I could just figure it out in advance, I wouldn’t get hurt.
Spoiler alert: it never worked like that.
The less I play emotional detective, the less I try to decode every shift in tone or silence, the more I can actually hear myself. I can stay in my body, with my feelings, instead of spiraling out into someone else’s emotional orbit.
And when I do that? I usually realize that a solid 95% of the time… everything is totally fine. Really and truly okay.
So this year, as I get closer to my birthday, I’m not focused on fixing every flaw or solving every feeling. I’m learning to trust that I don’t need to predict the future to feel secure in the present. And if year 28 is anything like what I hope, it’ll be less about reading between the lines and more about writing my own with clarity.