Last weekend, before Governor Cuomo surprised us by announcing that New Yorkers ages 30+ would be eligible to find vaccine appointments on March 30 and ages 16+ on April 6…

… I was having a really difficult time.

While I wasn’t sad all day, I felt a bit low energy and certainly wasn’t particularly cheerful. When I settled in to watch a documentary series about our solar system, a thought suddenly popped into my head:

I haven’t seen the stars in over a year.

This spiraled into other thoughts like:

I haven’t felt the wind or the warmth of the sun in weeks.
I haven’t seen a baby or pet a dog in over a year.
I haven’t held my parents in even longer.

But something about not having seen the stars… broke me a little.

It feels silly to write, and it felt silly having to explain to my husband why I was crying while learning about Voyager 2, but, naturally, I have always had a keen affinity for the stars. It’s strange how much my name has shaped me and my interests but I do feel something special when it comes to the stars and the cosmos; a kinship maybe?

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

– Sarah Williams, The Old Astronomer

Again, it feels embarrassing that such a small and arbitrary thing could affect me like this, a year into the pandemic, but sometimes your emotions just ebb and flow and you can get knocked down by a simple realization like not being able to see the stars from the middle of an urban jungle, and not leaving that urban setting for over a year.

Take care x