I have a packed 8th house (family legacy, psychology). The soldier has Moon Neptune in Scorpio in the 8th.

“I still can’t believe you let me get away with throwing you out all the time. I feel bad about it. I am sure you never deserved it. Did you?”

“Deserve it? No, I don’t think I ever did,” he said. I just don’t think I minded is all. I just figured it was something you needed to do. And it never bothered me that I can recall. I might have just been used to it.”

“Yeah?”

“Well my parents used to do that all the time. They’d get in some kind of row and someone would say, that’s it! I’ve had it! Kids, get the suitcases!” He laughed. “And we’d have to go get the suitcases… we’d get them down from the closet and put them on the bed, but nothing ever happened. No one ever actually left. Those two were in love. They were in love until the day he died, and then she almost went crazy. Well actually she did go crazy. She was throwing stuff over the balcony of the house when he died she was so upset.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It was awful. I’ll tell you the story some day. But see, Els, they were like us. They were in love and we were in love in the same way. They were as wrapped up as we were and you have to admit we were wrapped up pretty tight. Do you think this is true? Do I have this right?”

“Yeah, it’s right. I loved you to the bone. With extreme passion. I was crazy, actually.”

“Me too. So you can see how these kinds of flare-ups wouldn’t bother me. I just thought it was something that couples go through. I thought it was something that could and would happen now and then, in the normal course of things if people were really passionately in love.”

“I see.”

“And part of it’s cultural too; at least I think it is. Do you think part of this was our culture?”

“Yeah.”

“And we were young! And we’re both hotheads, you know. Your head is hotter than mine but mine is pretty hot in its own right, though not so much with you. I always calmed down around you. That was one of the things you did for me, you know. You calmed me down and you still do. I am not really a calm person unless you’re around. For some reason when I get around you, my blood pressure lowers.”

“Okay, well I am glad I did something for you because I sound like I was a hyena, otherwise.”

“A hyena?” He laughed. “You’re not a hyena. You were never a hyena. Listen to you.” He laughed some more. “Elsa P, the hyena. You say that now but guess what would have happened if I were to have called you a hyena back then?”

“Throw you out?”

“Oh yeah. And you’d have been trying to kick me too. You know. Kick me in the ass to make me move faster.”

I laughed. “That’s embarrassing but I am sure you’re right.”

“I am right. But don’t you worry about it. I would have never called you a hyena and when you did think you had cause, and you started trying to hit or kick me, I never let you connect, so there was no problem. I’m faster than you, P,” he said with a chuckle. “I had to be. I better be fast if I’m going to hang around you because you’re not slow and you are tricky.”

“Yeah…”

“So you can swing all you want as long as you don’t connect. I know all about this, see. I grew up with this. You think my mother never swung her fist at my father? She did. He never let her connect either. See, in my family the men dodge blows and the women love the men. And isn’t that how we were?”

I was speechless.

“Isn’t it? Don’t you think that was how we were?”

“Yeah,” I said feeling somewhat overwhelmed.

“Well there was nothing wrong with the way we were. Other people may not see it, or they may see it and prefer not to live this way but you and I? We weren’t having any problem. We were happy as hell. To tell you the truth, P, I don’t remember us ever having a problem of any kind.”

Does your culture allow for this kind of passionate expression?

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