User:Paulitamariella

This star won’t go

Great Perhaps By: Paula Marielle Ababao

This is the story of my very great star. In hopes that no one will ever let go of theirs, I have written a foretaste of my journey towards mine.

Scientifically speaking, the universe is composed of a countless numbers of stars with distinct variations. Some big, some small, some white, some blue.

Almost everyone is busy aiming for the big ones. Likewise, I had an eye for that tiny star far behind the bigger stars. That is my star and I wanted it so badly. I was unconditionally obsessed with it that I spent most of my time just staring at it.

I realized that if I want to have that star, I can’t just stare at it. I should pull myself together and earn it. That’s when I started writing.

I wrote and wrote and wrote hoping that I am good enough to have that star, but most of my write ups ended in rejection and being torn into pieces. This event happened very often that I got used to it throughout time.

Every rejection made me sad, depressed even. I grew tired of rejections and criticisms that I usually end up in a month-long writing hiatus, a period of time wherein I would stop doing what I do. I stop writing in fears of another rejection.

The worst rejection I had was when my star was right in front of me. It was just out there in the open, vacant and ownerless. All the nearby stars have been claimed and I was more than ready to earn it. But it was withheld from me by someone who has a say in writings and stars, the one who rejected and torn my works to pieces. He just sat there and denied me of my star telling me that I am “not in the position” to have it.

My little star is a big deal to me. For most people, it’s just some sort of immense abstract that is set down in words and is just read-gone into the void. But to me it’s not. It is something much more than that. It’s one of those rare reveries with a quality of unseen vagueness in it, that surpassing it would give you a promise of a Great Perhaps. It is a simple product of the mind from the complexity of overthinking that is immediately written down in words before it ever leaves your thoughts. It is something that’s carefully uttered despite its ineffability; straight from the vast significance of thoughts to its physical strokes in word forms; writing it, making it real, making something of an unreal thought exist externally in front of you. And there’s something much to it. But hearing those words from him, that I am not in the position to have it, drained out all the overwhelming phenomenon possessed by that star. The star is gone, so is the light. The dark is pitch black and there is no means to go on.

Shakespere once quoted “The fault my dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” I am no Shakespere but I am certain that the stars are just... stars. It isn’t their fault if they are impossible or extremely far away because they’re stars, they just float out there and it’s up to us if we can swim our way to them. And I did, I drowned a lot of times but that’s how things are.

My only confession is that after lots and lots of rejections, writing hiatus, and being told directly that I can’t have that star, I still continued writing and writing but not towards my star, I gave up on it a long time ago. I was writing towards a different direction. I don’t know where, I just wrote until I got lost. I was starless.

I believe in the star’s light, the unseen light hidden in the devastation of defeat. The light that finds you and stays with you until it’s bright enough to guide you back towards your star. I was about to let go. Right there, in every moment of rejection I was always on the verge of giving up. Maybe the star I wanted isn't really meant for me. And I did give up, but it was the stubbornness of the light, the passion, that resisted against letting go. You don't get to choose your fates in this world, but it’s our choices that make a huge difference. And I chose to keep going because the light wanted me to.

I now know and I still believe that that star is really meant for me. I know it because the star itself found its way toward me. I was just lucky enough to still be there and catch it.

Fates are tricky. Sometimes you do everything but it’s still not meant for you, and other times you just forget, then that's when it'll come to you.

Now that we’re up close to the end of my story, I guess it’s safe to say that you are a big part of my little star. You and all the other people who have read this, are reading this, and are fated to come across this column.

This column is my star.