October 4th, 2008

Dear Friend,
On nights when the sky is that deep shade of black I like to sit outside and watch the stars. In those moments on those perfect nights I feel infinite. No time constraints hold me to rush my thoughts…no obligations push me to be somewhere. I am in my own mind, my own place receiving the privilege to ponder about anything I should wish.
On one such night I was 10, maybe younger, having a campout on my best friend’s trampoline. As we sat in our hordes of pillows and blankets, in those drowsy phases right before sleep washes over you, I blurted out “do you believe in aliens?” The question, seeming random, made my friend giggle hysterically. In turn her laugh made me laugh and the answer to the question I had asked was lost. My friend fell asleep shortly after. As I sat there facing the sky and seeing all the stars and all that space I couldn’t help but to think about the complete relevance of my question. With so many countless starts, countless planets and countless galaxies it felt hard to believe we were the only ones there. In that thought I stumbled over how small this Earth seemed…microscopic in the scheme of things. That led me to fall over the thought that if this world, so populated and so big seemed like such a small thing, and then I, this 10 year old girl was next to invisible. I felt so alone in that moment. Why try to accomplish anything when in the spectrum of this universe I couldn’t even been seen? That thought was something I struggled with for awhile, and life seemed evermore inane.
Through my own struggle I watched as my home life was torn into shambles. My sister was struggling with coming out to my parents and my dad’s hatred of that situation sent my sister crying herself to sleep nightly. His denials, arguments, and hateful words sent a rift through the middle of my family and my own depression was quickly swallowed up into the other situation. I soon began to realize that the importance of life was life itself. We were to be the ones to discover the different universes, discover the species in the depths of our oceans and discover cures to different diseases. Even if the world seemed so small in this infinite universe, we were to be the ones to make the biggest impact.