This past Monday, December 19, Mercury went into retrograde.

What does this mean?

For a couple of weeks during each retrograde cycle, the planet Mercury will appear to move backward. It is in a sort of resting state in astrological terms, though it doesn’t actually stop moving or move backward. Mercury, being the ruler of all communications, has a retrograde cycle that affects our day-to-day lives more than when other planets go into retrograde.

When I learned that Mercury was about to go into retrograde again, I became spooked. I googled, “Does Mercury retrograde really matter?” and several other phrases to try to find out if this was just a case of mass hysteria. Of course, there were several scientific websites and sources refuting any claims of Mercury’s retrograde being able to make any sort of impact on our lives.

Sources like that are the same ones that will tell you that astrology is nothing more than a pseudoscience. In almost every poll I have seen, the majority opinion about astrology is that it’s completely insane. A lot of opinions I have read go along the lines of labeling anyone who actually believes in the zodiac signs and horoscopes to be nuts.

I don’t think it’s crazy, though. Letting your astrological beliefs dictate your life and who you associate yourself with is one thing, but I don’t think anyone ever takes it to that extreme. Horoscopes are fun to read, and the description of the signs tends to be accurate. On top of everything, I do find that things tend to go wrong and life becomes a bit more difficult during retrograde cycles.

So far this year, the retrograde cycles were:

• January 5 – January 25
• April 28 – May 22
• August 30 – September 22

For me personally, each of those periods of months encapsulated the darkest and the most trying times of this year. Maybe it is just a coincidence. I know that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but this seems more than just a coincidence for me.

In the first cycle during January, I had my midterms and I recall that there was a lot of stress and drama within my favorite band, Fifth Harmony. In the second cycle, I had a handful of AP exams as well as the toughest, darkest spot of my life where I nearly lost everything. And finally, in the third cycle of this year, I fell into a deep depression where I even tried to seek help from my college’s counseling center, only to encounter a therapist that didn’t click with me. Those were the days where I found it hard to get out of bed.

This current cycle spans until January 8. I tried to convince myself that the retrograde wouldn’t affect anything and that it was all in my head, but the minute the clock turned to midnight on December 19, things already began to act up.

I’m not exaggerating; at 12:00 AM on the dot, Fifth Harmony announced that Camila Cabello was leaving the band.

pic.twitter.com/YlWylsw5uE
— Fifth Harmony (@FifthHarmony) December 19, 2016

I’ve been a fan of the girls since they were on X Factor, and they have helped me through tough times. I’ve seen them live four times and had the privilege of meeting them twice. To think that such a big part of my life fell apart that quickly, easily, and in such a messy manner was devastating.

That was just the start of the bad events.

On that same day in Berlin, a truck sped through a crowded marketplace, killing 12 victims and hospitalizing dozens.

The next day, December 20, brought the assassination of a Russian ambassador in Turkey. Who knows what effect that will have on world relations?

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016

To worry us even more about the state of the world’s politics, our country’s next president tweeted about his desires to expand our nuclear presence. That just sounds like code for, “Let’s invoke World War 3!”

It seems like tensions have been building in everyone. Interpersonal relationships are being affected everywhere, and we can see that ourselves on the news but also in our own homes.

We’re not even a week into a retrograde, and we still have a little over a week to go.

I hate to be superstitious, but I’m terrified for what the rest of this cycle will bring us and how else 2016 wishes to induce pain on the world.