One night in the middle of the sound of crickets and the whooshing of the trees, I remembered curling up in bed with a pillow wrapped in my arms so tight. In the middle of a desperate attempt of getting myself out of yet another night of insomnia, I looked out from my window and counted the stars in the night sky. I counted one till ten, eleven and twelve until I was tired of counting. For ten seconds, the sound of crickets and the whooshing of the trees stopped. In that auspicious moment at eight years old, I realized - a sky can exist without the stars but the stars will never be without a sky.
One night in that same bed, at that age when hormones rebelled against tampons and curfews, I hypothetically tested my mother about my discovery when I was eight. She seemed to me like someone who had been a star herself. Someone who shone in somebody’s sky, someone who loved but never loved enough in return. I asked her on why does a sky often if not completely takes the beauty of a star for granted. I asked her why stars look like accessories in the night sky- that they shine because they should. She pretended not to hear me. She did not answer me. But I heard her very loudly. I heard the sound of her aching silence. I felt her pain. I sensed her defeat. The wall that she created has started to fall down. And little by little in the years that followed, she started to rebuild her walls again with the bricks of her sorrows.
Not once did she allow herself look vulnerable to anyone especially me. Never did she show me her tears and fears. And never did she pretend not to be a star because for me she shines so beautifully.
Unlike any mothers, she did not read me those mushy fairytale stories. She never told me the existence of happily-ever- after. She taught me what love really is: that is not enough and that it will never last forever.
She was a star and got tired of living in that somebody’s sky. But that doesn’t mean, she stopped trying to be a star because I am quite sure that she will never stop shining.
At twenty six, as I curled up in a different bed tonight, I remembered my star-sky theory. Adrenaline has kicked in and sleepiness won’t be bothering me in a few hours. In the middle of some melancholic Sarah Mclachlan’s song, I sat up and stared out from my window. And it was there, the antithesis of my theory: the sky and a star- but not just any ordinary star. As I stared with awe in the beauty of how two separate entities looked so perfectly in harmony, I put my preposition to rest. It is always like this from the start: a sky can never be exquisite without that single star that completes it and a star will always shine so beautifully in the right sky.
I wanted no starless sky.
But for the meantime, I will shine like her… beautifully.
