When did you start growing up?
Listen, my Saturn return just ended, of course I'm asking this question
This past weekend, I looked up my birth chart again to confirm when my Saturn Return started and when it ended. Then I remembered I had no idea how to read a birth chart, so I googled ‘Saturn Return calculator’ instead. Lucky me, the Almost 30 Podcast has one and gave me my dates.
If you know less about astrology than I do, here’s my very simple definition for a Saturn Return: a time in your life when Saturn returns to the exact position it was in when you were born and, therefore, ignites a period of intense self-realization and often change.
(If you know more about astrology than I do, please feel free to comment with a more nuanced definition for all of us!)
My first return started in 2020 (which, of course, it did) and ended last year. As astrology puts it, Saturn will return to your birth placement only a handful of times in your lifetime.
But, even if you don't believe in the planets and stars, we can all agree that some years in life are "growing up" years. For me, 2020-2023 was just that. Those four years were when I untangled a lot of my life and was pleasantly left with options and decisions that I actually felt equipped to act on or embrace.
I'd grown up, or the world had raised me just a little bit more. One instance of noticing this change happened just a few days ago. Someone in their mid-twenties started telling me about her dating ups and downs, and I was suddenly 23 again, knee-deep in dating apps, and so different from who I am now. I don't remember most of the guys, but Lord, do I remember myself. Smaller, more afraid, less involved in my life, and way too involved in theirs.
While the magic surrounding a Saturn return feels instantaneous, I don't think we change all at once. I'm not even sure we feel our Saturn return "turn on" whenever the calculator says it'll kick in. I think the future is simply kinder to us when we start to notice all the ways we have changed, the many ways we continue to grow up, and the moments that help us bookmark those times.
When I say "grow up," I also don't mean age. We all age so long as we are alive. (A true blessing.) But we don't all grow up in the same way at the same time or with the same milestones.
Taking responsibility for yourself and your life is a learned skill. For many reasons, our parents/caregivers may have not taught us how to do this in tangent with our chronological age. Some of us have to really, really age to start growing up. So then, we learn in spurts, through experiences, or in seasons where the fire alarms have stopped going off, our bodies rediscover calm, and our minds have time to expand.
It took me 27+ years to feel some of that, and it took four-ish years since then to start making decisions from that place of calm and integrity. It could be my Saturn return, or maybe it was just my time. Whatever it was, the last few years benefited who I am today, and that matters to who I'll keep becoming in the future.
It's beautiful that the increasing popularity of talking about your Saturn Return has given others a permission slip to feel more comfortable growing up later in life or simply always growing up, no matter your age. (Which, as my therapist tells me, is apparently just life.)