written in the stars

The stars are always looking down, even if we're not seeing them because of the daylight, city lights, clouds, walls, curtains, ceilings.... they're still there.

I wanted to be an astronomer when I was a kid, I wanted to find new stars and planets, asteroids and comets bound for Earth, and even though I don't spend so much time looking upwards these days, I still love the sky, and the things beyond it.

The winter has set in, and when midday hits and the rain disperses, for me, this is perfection: that winter chill, and mellowed out sunshine, the breeze taking a time out from trying to blow through my bones. And when the weather gets too cold, too windy, too wet to stand out beneath the droplets without the threat of pneumonia, and I have the time to just sit, I find myself switching on the computer, inserting the necessary disc into the drive and lighting up my imagination with the Wonders of the Solar System. And I'm like a kid again, fascinated by science and the universe and all the cool things science unravels. I'm reminded why I love physics and why it was my favourite subject at school.

And I want to look up at the sky again, for as long as the reel is running and holding my attention. And then it's all over, and reality slips back in, and there's a loss of interest, and a forgetting of wonder, unable to hold onto all that beauty when the distractions of the real world and real life set back in.

I can't remember the last time my head didn't hurt with the tension of stress, and the inability to make my little world better and less insane. But sometimes I can forget that my head hurts, or that I'm perpetually tired and strung out like a rubber band on the verge of snapping, and smacking into everyone in range with the back lash.

So, maybe I can't take a holiday and I can't afford the things I want anymore, and can barely afford the things I need. Maybe my living situation is less than perfect. Maybe most of my friends suck and I'm tired to making an effort when everyone else can't be arsed to.

But for the time it takes too look up at the stars or get lost in a DVD about them (because the sunlight hides the night sky behind the pale blue), life sucks just a little less.

© Indie Adams 2013