My family — my aunt and grandmother in particular — have a way of introducing me to people that I have always found really hilarious.

“This is Holly. She’s a writer. She is very opinionated. Don’t talk to her about politics or religion or we’ll be here all day.”

What a shining first impression, right? I think after that kind of forewarning that I have actually surprised people who have met me for the first time by being a real person, rather than a walking, talking political ad.

They aren’t wrong, though. I am a writer, and it is my fiercely-held belief system that afforded me the ability to take what I love to do and turn it into a career — at least at first. Before I began Woman Tribune, I was a political, feminist and human rights blogger; but that subject matter gets intense very quickly, and I, like many others in that field, suffered a severe case of social justice blogger burnout that I never recovered from.

As a writer, I could easily hold a doctorate in introspection. I know who I am and have even used my admitted not-so-great qualities as ample blog fodder. But it was through my several-year stint as a confessional-style feminist blogger that I was really given a look at how I come across to people whose only contact with me was through the words I wrote on a website day after day. I have even had people write entire articles of their own about me and who they perceive me to be. It was very bizarre, and also kind of enlightening at the same time.

I think that how other people view you as a human, especially those closest to you, is very telling. To my family, I’m the snarky, opinionated politico of the bunch. To those who knew me only from my website and social media interactions, I have always been intense, heavy, and have even been told that I can take emotional writing to a whole new level.

I don’t know whether or not that was (or is) considered a positive attribute or not. I guess it just is what it is. I am who I am, and after today, I have an even firmer grasp on what attributes, good and bad, make up who I am as a person, all because of my new-found fascination with the Secret Language website.

The Secret Language is not based in astrology, but is a distillation of personality traits found during a 40-year study of more than 20,000 people, organized by birthday. The website instantly delivers a person’s Secret Language Name, along with a list of traits and information about that person’s natural identity. It is truly fascinating, not to mention a lot of fun.

My birthday is November 2nd and my Secret Language Name is Discovered Transformation. My traits? Influential; powerful; adaptable; smothering; manipulative; heavy… yeesh! But (mostly) accurate. I wouldn’t consider myself to be smothering, but then again how many people would really admit to a trait like that?

It is timely to be writing about the Secret Language, and particularly about this transformative state of being that I exist in. I turned 27 two days ago and when I mentioned on Twitter that my birthday, and this birthday especially, was filled with ample amounts of self-induced pressure, I got a prompt reply from one of my favorite Twitter acquaintances about how I am coming up on my “return to Saturn,” which explains the pressure I am putting on myself to be better and do better in all areas of my life, but especially in my writing. Wouldn’t you know that the Secret Language website went right into that in their assessment of me via my birthday.

November 2 people generally arrive at a crossroads, often around age twenty-eight (first Saturn return), forty-four (Uranus, Saturn opposition) or fifty-six (second Saturn return) when they must drastically redirect the course of their lives. Should they be able to effect an internal change, becoming aware of their needs and ever more determined to realize them, then the chances of them succeeding on their path are great indeed. If they are not able to accomplish the necessary changes inside them, then they will begin to stagnate, eventually growing frustrated, angry and depressed.

Well. Welcome to my brain.

I am Holly’s perpetual self-reflection.

And, as for often being told how intense of a human I am, my birthday falls into what is called the Week of Intensity. Yeah.

Not only can you learn a ton about your personal Secret Language Name, but you can also look up your Relationship Name! How cool is that? Well, it’s all fun and games until you look up your eight-year (and counting) relationship, again, by you and your partner’s birthdays, and are greeted with an assessment that immediately tells you that your traits are problematic for marriage. Oh yes, it did.

Evidently me and my fiance’s Relationship Name is An Underground Labyrinth, with me being born during the Week of Intensity and him being born during the Week of Leadership. According to the Secret Language, we would make awesome friends, but our future marriage is doomed.

Our traits: trusting; beauty-loving; creative; troubled; complex; repressive.

Well, Secret Language, here’s hoping you’re wrong about something.

Whether you believe or read into the information of the Secret Language or not, there is no denying how interesting and entertaining it can be to read through, either for yourself or following your partner around the house reading theirs to them and then repeatedly asking if they feel that was an accurate assessment of them. Yep, I did that.

Check out the Secret Language website and look up your Secret Language Name. It takes mere minutes and the information is compelling. Was it an accurate representation of you as a person? Leave it in the comments!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

This past Saturday was the inaugural event of the Jessup Art Loop, a community outreach event that showcases original local businesses and talent in Jessup, Pennsylvania on the second Saturday of the month from 3-8pm.

Allen, doting fiance, was asked to play at the event, being a local(ish) guitar badass, which worked out since I wanted to check it out anyway. So while he did a little something good for the community, I went off and had an awesome and eye-opening time at the Jessup Art Loop.

Allen played outside Capra Collina Winery on Constitution Ave, improvising over several backing tracks for an impressive four and a half hours straight. Man is intense.

Here’s a video of just a few minutes of his playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_kr76ZK1U

Capra Collina Winery is a small, family business completely deserving of their reputation in the area for quality, delicious wines. Their recipes are created the artful, old-fashioned way in the basement of their retail location, a quaint and adorable house-turned-winery with a separate kitchen and stairs that lead to a second (non-business-operational) floor.

The winery is seriously one of the coolest businesses I have visited. The people are friendly and genuinely appreciative of every single person who walks through their door. Of course, I also have to add that their wines are phenomenal. I walked out with three bottles of my own at the end of the day.

Naturally, Allen and I wasted no time opening a bottle for ourselves upon returning home that night. Here’s a quick picture we took enjoying a bottle of Niagara in his recording studio, located in the basement apartment of our house. Like his super bright green walls? Me neither.

Also out to lend their unique skills and talents to the Jessup Art Loop festivities were:

Artists!

Food!

Animals!

More Music!

In addition to Allen shredding it up at Capra Collina, these musicians were also playing at various businesses throughout the Jessup Art Loop:

The inaugural Jessup Art Loop was a huge success. All of the business owners I had the chance to speak with as it was winding down were nothing but enthusiastic about the outcome and the amount of support that people had for their community and the businesses people have started in it in order to provide a life and legacy for their families. As someone who was merely a visitor of the Jessup Art Loop, a participant in all of what the businesses, musicians, and artists offered during those five hours on the second Saturday of the month, I walked away with a slightly different, yet humbling view of a town I grew up around but hardly ever visited.

When you are born, raised, and now live within 45 minutes of the same general area, you can start to believe you’ve seen all that area has to offer. Especially when it is a blue collar, working class area best known for coal and hours away from an actual large city. When you don’t fit perfectly inside the routine 9-to-5 box that eventually comes to be expected of the best of us — when you watch your neighbors get up in the morning, go to work, and come home at the same time everyday — it’s easy to feel disconnected and like maybe you just don’t fit in.

What the Jessup Art Loop showed me, however, is that there are amazing and talented people all around me doing great things. They are continuing their family legacy in the wine-making business; they are running bake shops in the hope of being able to pass it down to their children; there are people spending months on one drawing with the hope that someday it means as much to someone else as it does to them; there are people writing songs and baring their souls to a crowd looking for the person it will speak to; they are taking pictures of the beauty of life through a camera lens. Even more, there are people who can relate to you right outside your door, who care about the things you care about and who have also maybe felt as if they were on the outside looking in to their own community.

This is precisely why community events, such as the Jessup Art Loop, are so important. Everyone benefits when a community works together to do something fun and great. Businesses bring in more revenue (and then use those revenues to provide for their families and strengthen the local economy) and the people of that community realize that their home, the place that they thought they had seen and experienced everything they could in, does in fact still have a lot to offer them.