The rain washes away the stains of my past and the burdens of my day as I sit on my bed looking out the window. The warmth of my blanket provides me comfort and safety otherwise unknown to me. The cool breeze from the trees lulls me into a dreamless state. The smell of wet earth makes me feel like everything’s going to be alright. The tranquility of the night sky humbles me with its simplistic beauty. 

There is something really magical that kicks in when you feel like you are the only one in the world that’s still awake, and the whole world exists just for you. 

 I think about how constellations are an entirely human-made construct and don’t actually exist in nature. The universe gave us stars, and we saw art, myths, and stories in them. The capacity that humans have for seeing purpose in incidents makes me realize just how lonely we are on this planet, desperately searching for meaning elsewhere in the universe. Hence, creativity thrives in the nocturnal hours, breathing life into words and strokes of the brush, appeasing the childlike dreamer of the aspiring author and the amateur artist in me. The dopamine high that hits right after I finish a painting soon fades into a critique. This is an eternal struggle, existing in a paradoxical world with my art, where optimism and cynicism coexist. I’m stuck in the constant limbo between “really excited about my own writing” and “pretty sure I can’t actually write”. 

 

To me, it’s important to be alone. Solitude is a prerequisite to being openly and joyfully susceptible to the world and the world beyond. To get attached to that one line of a song that holds so much meaning, but no one else understands how uniquely powerful those few words are to you. For the inherent romanticism of the creative mind to bleed onto paper.

 

 I lie down on the floor and stare at the ceiling, at 3 am, in the middle of yet another personal crisis. “I need to learn 2 instruments, 1 craft, and five languages. Immediately.” Or “The first thing I’m going to do once it’s safe is going to an art museum”. I wonder how I am supposed to “major” in something and continue building my life around it when my interests completely change every two years and I’m stuck at unforeseeable intervals by an inescapable need to make a fresh start. Or if the inventor of the cursive thought: what if letters held hands? How wild is it that every version of you probably exists somewhere, in someone’s memory? The messy you, with paint all over your hands, still exist in your parents’ minds. The happy, sun-soaked you are still alive in your best friend’s memory. That no part of you has died, existing always. Simultaneously and hidden.

 

Late-night drives are an enchanting experience, there’s nothing more heavenly than a city at 4 am with its empty streets and cold wind. The chill from the breeze seeped deep into my bones, holding me close in an invisible embrace, I let myself dissolve into the sky. The noise from my overactive mind dies away, fading into music, lyrics floating through my head, while my hand subconsciously starts playing an imaginary piano on any surface that it finds. I felt my heart beating for the first time in a long while, I realized how little I live in my body, how much in my mind.

 

When Charles Bukowski said “find what you love and let it kill you”, I knew I was yet to find something, and that it doesn’t want to be described still. We’re all ordinary, we’re all interesting, we’re all shy and we’re all bold. It just depends on the day. But when I’m alone under the night sky, my soul whispers to the stars. I’m home. And I don’t ever want to leave.