When I was a child, the stars were infinite in the sky. Spread out so generously, I’d stare up in awe wondering how could things so small could be so beautiful. How could this illuminated sky so far away feel like home to me? I made promises and wishes and sent them up. And when the promises were broken and the wishes failed to come true, I learned that when stars die they explode and leave nothing behind but a gaping black hole. Now when I look up, my eyes have adjusted to the emptiness above me and I don’t see the stars anymore. I see black extended forever after the sun sets. I see that sometimes dreams aren’t meant to survive and hearts were made to be broken.
When you lose the ones you love, there’s that familiar feeling like a supernova of heartache in your chest. You’re left with fragments of what they once were; you try to keep them close to you but they cut like shards of glass, only meant to hurt and never enough to be pieced back together. When we lose these people who make us feel whole, the ones who never were far from reach, the void within your soul grows and threatens to consume you. There is a longing, a need to remember the way their laugh hitched and the way their eyes crinkled at the edges when they smiled. The desperate ache to have one last memory you can shelter with you and carry like a keepsake. Something to keep you warm at night and to hold you together again.
Your world will slowly dim and turn red. The universe never held any mercy for your suffering. No, this was an elaborate plan designed for your misery and yours alone. The people who tried to give you love now give you pain and the words on your tongue are numbed with hate when you speak, so they bite their tongues and let you pass. No one could ever understand you. No one could ever know what it feels like to have to remember to breathe when all you want to do is let your head fall beneath the water. This rage unlike anything ever before, fills the void and lights a fire inside of you but it doesn’t help you sleep. It doesn’t catch the tears that fall no matter how hard you swipe at them. Finally, there is so much battling inside of you something has to give. You surrender and defeat comes like second nature; you’re on your knees and the sky rests heavy on your shoulders. Suddenly the stars don’t seem so beautiful anymore and seem to carry more pain than beauty.
When you lose the ones you love, the only way to remember to survive is to look up. If you stay still enough, you’ll watch the Earth slowly turn and you’ll realize that nothing has stopped moving. When the pain overwhelms you, stand still and look up at the way the sun hits the horizon when she sets and how it does so every single day and misses the moon when he rises. Yet they never stop moving for one another. The love the sky holds is greater than anything we can ever imagine. It sees all the anguish, all the hurt and disaster that happens below, and helps us gently awaken every time a new day arrives. The sky gives us a second chance to be okay again. It holds so much hope, it’s impossible not to look up and feel its trust in you.
Just wait. Look up and even if you notice the stars exploding, just wait. There will be another one reborn from its ashes and if you look long enough you’ll find yourself healing from within. And once again you’ll see the stars in the distance and wish upon every single one of them. Broken or not, you’ve been reborn from the ashes and every black hole you meet will always have a star emerging from its darkness.
