Melanie Jimenez/Reflections Head
When I was young, I looked up at the stars. It was a way for me to not feel abandoned. When I looked up at the stars, I didn’t feel alone. I didn’t feel worthless. I felt like there was somebody out there listening to my voice. I felt like I mattered.
Oftentimes, people look up to the stars and have an existential crisis. They see the vast universe laid out before them and tremble at the thought of being so insignificant. But for me, I saw it as an opportunity. Opportunity to grow and expand, opportunity to learn and develop, opportunity to figure out my place on this tiny little blue marble.
We often call those who reach for the stars “dreamers,” but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.
My fascination with the heavens continued onto my teenage years. If I were any smarter, I would probably become an astronaut just to be one step closer to those lights up above. The world from down on the ground seems so vast. 7 billion people and growing more each day. Thousands of cities, each with millions of people within them. Oceans teeming with life, deeper than Mount Everest and stretching wider than entire countries. Neil Armstrong once said "that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
Our ancestors used the stars to navigate, following constellations while at sea, or specific stars on the horizons. The stars guided them to new lands, lost worlds, sometimes guided them home. Some civilizations worshipped the stars and planets as gods—divine beings. Today, we see them as goals. We strap ourselves onto million-dollar bombs and propel ourselves towards the abyss with no real goal in mind, other than I want to see it.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
My world got significantly smaller during quarantine. I saw less people, went less places, traveled much less, and yet the stars up above still seemed to stretch on infinitely. Just like when I was younger, if I ever felt lost or lonely, I would look up. I’d wish on those tiny pinpricks of light, those specks of pixie dust, for my dreams to come to life.
All the problems that I have today don’t seem much like problems when I remember just how small I am. This quarantine, this coronavirus, this loneliness I feel is so, very tiny. Whenever I looked up, I remembered how much I wanted to see the stars up close. It reminded me how hard I needed to work to get to where I wanted to be. I want to see the stars.
During dark nights, humanity looks to the stars for guidance. We reassure ourselves that although we are small, we can be bigger. That though we are lost, there is something more out there. We just need to keep working, wishing upon the stars (pun intended), and dreaming.
This tiny blue marble is our world, but it is not our entire universe.
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