Have you ever felt it?
That one feeling… that one explosion in your soul.
It builds hot and wild in your chest, swirling about and around, faster than a hurricane. It stretches the limits of your heart, filling every inch of you, from the tips of your hair to the bottoms of your feet.
It stretches your fingertips out, making you long to reach out and grasp something you could never touch.
It is barely contained by the physical limitations of your body.
It is like an untamed stallion: bucking, rearing, and devoid of all thought.
All it has is the longing to be free, and to ride with unlimited strength under the sun, reaching beyond the horizon of the the impossible.
And then your heart turns to wage war with itself.
A giddy joy fills your body, making your feet and your heart both long to dance.
And at the same time the explosion pricks your heart with the most terrible sorrow. You feel the overwhelming pressure of the tears pressing behind your eyes.
But even as your throat clogs with those tears, you throw your head back with a desire to laugh.
Everything inside you is burning bright and unbearable, like a burning star whose light will not be limited to the point in space from which it began.
Instead, at the very end of its life, it reaches out to share its brightness and heat that it kept inside itself all these years.
And just as soon as you feel unable to hold it a second longer… just as soon as you know you must release it or burn like a dying star, you hesitate.
You hesitate for one, singular second.
Then someone passing by reminds you of a chore, of an everyday occurrence, of anything to do with normalcy. You remember what your life was before.
And it is only after the person goes on their way, that you turn your attention inward again. You are ready to release this bright gift inside you to the world, but then you realize…
The star inside you is gone. It’s time inside you had come, and its life had ended. You were not there to grasp it and guide it on its way to the world.
It is lost.
Inside you, even now, is the evidence that the exploded star left behind. The slightly accelerated breathing… the tightness in your chest from the effort of accommodating it…
But you take in a deep, cleansing breath, and the cooling air soothes your chest and your heart.
You take another breath, and let it out with a slow nod.
It is gone, and a new sorrow pricks at the place where it had been. You wish you could bring it back.
But yet you know that it is not the only star you may ever encounter.
For even the smallest child knows…
There are many stars in the sky.
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