As summer finally approaches, I find myself among the cool night breeze and thousands of stars.
Most of the time in this situation, I'm complaining about how it's cold, how I can't find my flashlight, and how, for the thousandth time, I don't see Orion. But tonight, I have something a little deeper on my mind.
Call me a bad camp counselor, but I've never been incredibly fond of stargazing. I've never really liked darkness (it still scares me a little) and I've never liked being cold (really, just me being picky). Beyond those small qualms, though, I find stargazing to be incredibly difficult. When everyone else is noticing all these cool constellations, I stare at the sky, seeing nothing but a bunch of separate dots scattered and displaced.
Don't get me wrong -- there's something so inspiring about staring at something so vast and static. When I first lay down and look up, I love stargazing. It's when I try and fail to see the patterns -- to make sense of it -- that my frustration begins and I lose my sense of wonder.
Note that I don't lose my wonder because I see the constellations, but rather because I don't and I want to. Seeing the patterns -- being able to categorize the stars in almost a hundred different ways and appreciate them through a hundred different lenses -- I think would increase my sense of wonder.
The inspiration I feel when first laying down would be augmented through clearer understanding, not threatened.
Now, life. This past semester especially, I've fought a lot with the idea, "Who am I?" It's pretty common for someone my age, but that doesn't change that it's grueling to figure out. To make matters a little more complicated, I often feel the pressure of society asking me instead: "What do you do?"
Perhaps this is idealistic and even pompous, but I don't think what I do is equivalent to who I am. There's a lot more that burns within me than the 24-hour days can allow me to express. And while I do think it's true that you spend time on the things that are most important to you, I don't want my identity to be confined to only those things. I wish I could be a billboard: easy, understandable, and concise. A life dedicated to a single cause or idea, one simple career goal, one personal statement, a one-page resume. But really, what's in me is the starry sky, complete with the occasional night chill, darkness, a lot of frustration, and hopefully a lot of wonder.
This summer, I have a new goal: I will see the constellations in the starry night. It might be disillusioning at times, but I won't stop searching. And I won't stop searching for the constellations within myself, either. Just because it doesn't fit together right away doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.
I will sip this hot cocoa and stare into the night. I will brave the cold winds and the darkness. Even if I can never fully explain or even understand the full picture, I will patiently piece together who I am -- one constellation at a time.
