Today I saw the stars.
At first, I saw the deep blue enormity of the sky that enveloped the world in a warm darkness. And then I saw the lights, some that shine with a dignified confidence, and others so shy that their presence is hardly known.
Today I saw the stars.
I squinted to see the seven sisters unmoving in their close devotion to one another, Orien’s belt, and the little dipper. Just like I have seen in hundreds of clear skies before.
But today, I saw the stars.
I stared up into the vastness of the universe, I stared into the promise that there are some things we can explain, and there is a lot more that we can’t. I stared into the sky and saw wonder. I felt all the normal things people feel when they really see the stars. I felt small. I felt beauty. I felt a confusing understanding that even one, small life, had its place in this big universe.  For all at once, I felt everything in the world, and nothing at all.
Today I saw the stars.

Time. It can be your biggest enemy, or your sweetest escape

It can be the very thing you are living for yet dying for at the same exact moment.

It helps you to remember at the same time working to forget.

It is  not the moving hands on the clock or the buzzing of your iPhone alarm in the early morning.
It’s a representation of where you stand in the vastness of life. A moment that can make it all or end it all. It’s how we choose to face these moments that define who we are. Are we going to stand up and fight, or let them pass by.

We’ve all heard the staying that time doesn’t stand still. It doesn’t wait till you are in place and ready, it goes on. Many of us see this as a curse. We don’t want to grow up, or move on, or move out. We don’t like not knowing and wondering who or what will be here tomorrow.

But maybe this is life’s greatest gift to us all, that it doesn’t stop. Because it forces us to try and chase the moments as they pass by. It forces us to live every day as something new.

Time.
There’s never enough.

So we can sit here and try to fight it or we can get up and wave as it passes by.
Either way in the blink of an eye, everything is gone.

I hurriedly pull my street dusted , golden brown Toyota into the middle of a gas station war zone. The kind that turns neighbors into enemies, fighting to gain the only valuable piece of real estate around – the gas tanks. The drivers collectively sport the exact same exhausted and frustrated grimaces. A rusty and dated “ Exon Mobile” sign stands tall and strong against the sundrenched sky. The day is coming to a close, and the sun seems hurried to set as if it is exhausted from the day’s labors and expectations that it must rise again tomorrow, just like the gas station’s patrons. This station, to most, is just another stop. Another errand that puts itself between you and the warmth of home. This station, is just another stop. Another errand at the end of an endless day. But to me, this place is full of promise. This is the one place on earth that gives us life. It gives us the chance to see the world and to explore uncharted grounds. This place brings us closer to adventure and myseries, to happiness, to heartbreak, to feeling. This is the fuel and the energy that is waiting to help you make it to the hospital at 4 am to see the birth of a child. This old and worn pitstop let’s us fall in love with the world, with what we can see, with eachother.
But there is this silver truck with tires too big and a man two sizes to small in the passenger seat. There is a prominent dent in the left side door that has remained unchanged, unhelped, in weeks. As this silver, dented piece of metal sits in the way between me and my pajamas, I have the chance to stop. Not to stop because I’ve finally got to where I’ve been trying to go. Not to stop to pay the McDonald’s cashier in shameful regret of another broken new year’s promise. But to really stop. For an unexpectedly and disappointingly long time. To stop with no expectations. To be forced to just stop. And to wait. And to look around.

Drive. What moves us foreword.
Our heart’s desire, what causes us to act for what we want most in this world. It’s never lost, not forever anyways.

It might be hiding, waiting to see if you’ll come looking.
It might be up so high that when you reach the top, you realize that it’s not there, it never was, and you come down.  
Maybe, it’s just shy.
Maybe, it’s in that annoying shadow that follows you but can never be caught.
But at the same time, a shadow never goes away – only seems to disappear when we turn around.

What is life without this search?

We were made to chase things. We have two legs and opposable thumbs that let’s me know so.
So why should our drive and our passion defy these rules.
Fun fact : They don’t.

Believing is seeing.
Or
Is seeing believing?

But, I don’t think there’s a difference.
I believe in the way the sun always chases the day, and I wake up every morning seeing that it’s still out there searching.  I wake up and fall asleep to that light pink sky skewed with a golden assurance that there is something out there.
There’s something bigger,.
Something so unexplainable that can only be heard
in the silence.


So, maybe, your drive has plainly gone missing. But, maybe, it’s gone so you can chase it.