Where My Stars Wait

For my sister, who I constantly nagged and pestered to read and edit my writing—just as I once did when we painted our starry nights together.

Pure disbelief immerses my body, a waterfall of awe as eager butterflies madly flutter in my stomach, impatient to behold the surreal wonder themselves.

The starry night is a work of art.

At a loss for words, I struggle to capture and preserve the view in front of me, fearful of it dissipating and losing its way down memory lane. I feel a chilly breeze brush my face, and my eyes falter with tears either because of where I stand, or the coldness of the ocean.

A passionate artist has taken the night sky as a canvas, mindlessly mixing iridescent shades of purple, pink and blue just to smear them, lazily splattering white blotches of paint to form scattered constellations, oblivious of the perfect picture created. The sky feels inches from my flushed cheeks, and I can almost reach out with my hands and count every point on each star and the spaces between them.

The stars are more than just glistening cosmos engraved into the dark sky like sequins on a dress; they blink like the hopes of people, never giving out. Stealthily robbed, hermetically wrapped in glittery paper forbidding them to run off far into the night, thrown into the sky to give them superior meaning when looking down at the shore beneath them, discreetly mocking its insignificance.

As if the stars have been taking too much of my attention, I feel a blend of purples and pinks stubbornly clinging to my toes, grabbing with all their might in case a more powerful stroke of wind whisks my dazed structure and the sand into one muddled body.

Darker shades of purple creep onto the shore, longing to embrace its forever companion, leaving the sand with the gentlest kiss of a touch and retreating only after sweeping over the shells dotted across the sand like sprinkles on a cake.

The rhythm of the water is so refreshing as it washes up on the shore, clinging to and pulling the damp sand into the ocean with it. Slow ripples glide closer, and closer to my frozen feet and my ears drum with the fear of being dragged into the sheer swirls. The water laps at my ankles, causing goose bumps to cascade down my legs like zombies rising from the dead. But the wind strokes my face, insisting, and I close my eyes to accept the beauty around through every inch of my being.

I’m lost.

Star struck and dazed, fear has delightedly left my conscience for an interminable holiday. Lightheaded, I come to the realization that the sand my toes were previously embedded in, has been consumed by the cool water. I sink down into the scenic coastline watching the waves, and my self-restraint seems to have dissolved into the glittered air, sailed away with the tide, only to be replaced with a wonderful yet foreign emotion.  I grasp onto it, lest it vanish or transform into something different altogether.

Coming from the belief that the stars were too high for me, somehow, I have jumped higher than my premonitions, grabbed one of the squealing bright creatures and held it close to my heart to forever nourish the marvellous feeling of freedom.

The moon catches my eye as I watch the waves rolling over each other playfully. It stands alone soaring in the dark glittered sky, illuminating its light to blanket and embellish everything beneath. It doesn’t boast like the jealous stars turning their twinkling, but frustrated faces away from its ethereal light. Unafraid of its imperfections, it encourages the water trying to grow a darker shade of vampire violet beneath, that even darkness learns to shine in the presence of light.

The waves stroke my feet lightly as they rest in the pristine water, and the wind caresses my face softly, moving along to my arms and tickling the ends of my fingers. The sand decides to stop desperately tugging at my feet and instead soothe my toes as the mix of sand and water weaves through my toes and the cold spreads into my skin. It’s as if nature can sense my intentions of never leaving its star island isolated, like it once was before, and so it slowly lulls my senses, one by one.

The waves roll over each other, an endless current guiding them toward the sand in an indefinite cycle of embrace. Farther out, the ocean tumbles, roars, and crashes against eroded rock. The presence of the ocean is loud and unyielding, but not enough to block out the chaotic confusion that plagues my mind.

Why am I here?

How did I get here?

It’s not long before I find myself weighing the possibility of a familiar past and the responsibility of going back, and where I now stand, with the rippling of the waves whistling through my ears like a siren call. Caught in a daze, I feel the presence of another before I feel the soft, padded skips in the sand behind me. I repel my protesting eyes away from the star-studded sky but before I can turn my head to see, the sand beneath my feet dips, and I’m met with a smaller, warmer hand pressing against my own. The little hand tugs on me and the action makes me sway slightly, turning my head to see a little girl standing before me, smiling ear to ear.

For the longest moment, we stand before each other – silent, curious, surprised. The only communication on the shore is between the waves and the sand as they collide and pull away, uniting and immediately being forced to repel, never losing contact for long. Their sounds harmonize with the shuffling of her feet as she steps closer, still tightly grasping my hand, a safe cocoon protecting me from the frenzied confusion flooding my mind. The slight motion sends fervour through me, a furious rhythm clashing with the chaotic turmoil gushing through my head and the waves that ripple before me.

My eyes linger on her tightly braided fishtail, which looks as though the night itself has showered her in stardust, specks of light woven into every strand. Her hair holds so much of it, betraying her innocence and giving away the story of snow angels made in the sand long after, a beautiful mess left behind. Her braid falls in front of her right shoulder, caught by a blue candy-shaped hair-tie. As if on cue, she tilts her head to the side to examine me, and I barely catch the sparkling water enclosed within her candy orb as it shakes with her movement. She holds my hand with a little more pressure, worried that a loose grip might make me vanish and run far into the wonderland we’re standing in together.

It feels like a long time before the sound of the waves breaks my trance and yet, they seem louder now than when I thought I had tuned the world out. I find that her eyes glimmer with a question of their own as they trace my face. Her hazel eyes grow wider now turning chocolate brown with raw emotion, deep waters dwelling inside almost drowning my last sediment of sanity. Without saying a word, she looks away from me, yet a twinkle remains in her eye as she scans the water.

Still speaking purely with her eyes, she looks at me and pulls me toward the water, her warm fingers clutching mine as we get closer to the waves now reaching past my ankles. As we draw closer, the waves surge fiercely, stirring the wind, and my dress flutters like a blazing butterfly, a falling star losing its composition as it flattens against the sandy peaks on the ground. Now the water gathers against my legs, cold and persistent as we sit down and she draws my numbed fingers to the mouth of the waves.

As though only watching the water isn’t enough for her and being immersed within it creates a space for what she wants to show me. Only then do I notice the splatter of paint etched across her palms, staining her fingers, and inked beneath her nails. Before I can settle my restless mind or the unease brimming like an abyss in my chest, she asks the question I’ve been avoiding, and I already know the answer. Her voice is gentle, but it reverberates through me as she speaks for the first time.

Her words echo deep enough to pierce through my mind, and it feels like time has stilled again.

“Did you forget so easily?”

“Forget?” I blurt out defensively, and my voice shakes as I look at her, yearning for an answer that won’t vaguely slip away from me.

“Or did you forget how to return?”

The sudden realization crashes into me like a supernova; blinding and brilliantly impossible to capture and contain. Memories surge forward, lighting up and reclaiming every corner of my childhood I thought had gone dark when the curtain fell for the last time. But I realize now that some light remained—a faint yet stubborn afterglow stretching across time, still reaching out to me with the hope of being seen again.

Waves of nostalgia overtake my memory, and the stars of realization begin to align, forming a pattern I can no longer ignore or hide myself from. The water doesn’t just reflect the sky; it reflects the stars. Their light blinks across its surface, deliberate and wishful, a signal crafted for me, one that I’ve taken too long to notice.

The stars are asking me to remember.

And I do.

This place isn’t something I merely stumbled into. I could never be called a lost traveller.

The girl holding my hand isn’t simply the painter of this starry night. She is my beginning. I remember being her, my smaller hands brushing joy and wonder into every stroke, as I set a canvas down to paint.

The water was never meant to be part of the scenery. It’s where the colours on my brush learned to change, switching between splotches of purple and pink, bleeding into a shade of violet so rich it still glimmers beneath the stars, as if the paint never truly dried and the water held its memory.

That’s why the waves reach for us, first tugging at our feet, and then gravitating to our hands when we place them at the water’s edge. The way the sea foam melts into our skin, recognizing the shape of us, and the wind caresses our cheeks, friendly and knowing.

Then I see it. The light in her untamed hazel eyes.

My eyes.

Our gazes meet, and for the first time I catch the childlike joy running through them, so quick I almost miss it. It hurts to recognize the twinkle in her eye, one that has always been there, even if it has dimmed with time, still outshining the glistening water, the stars, and the milky white rays of the moon, because it is my own, staring back at me.

She feels it too. A small, knowing smile graces her lips as her grip tightens around my hand, steady and reassuring, and her eyes soften as if she’s been waiting for me to catch up. The butterflies in my stomach beat harder now, their wings forming the two chambers of my heart, pounding as I struggle to steady myself against the weight of nostalgia.

This is the moment that sits at the end of every hourglass.

Where time pauses just long enough for one to look back and recognize themselves not as you are now, but as you once were.

The water takes shape again, now shifting to entertain us as the waves begin a slow dance that we watch together. Fragments flicker across its surface; layers of paint smeared in ragged strokes, white paint mindlessly flicked across the canvas by the bristles of a toothbrush, my hands stained in a midnight mosaic. I remember it now, the memory growing with every turn, waltz, and fall the waves carry through.

I once painted and stood back to watch my canvas dry, knowing every minute it took, every shade that mixed to create a perfect galaxy. Now I stand back again, only this time, I watch in silent awe, as if the hands that shaped it were no longer mine but a version of me left unfinished, forgotten, lost. Waiting.

Why am I here?

How did I get here?

You’ve been here before.

I’ve been here all along.

I thought I had grown up without leaving a piece of me behind, that the girl who once burned with colour and wonder had simply grown with me. But the way she looks at me now tells a different truth. I didn’t lose her. Time taught me how easy it was to leave her behind. And still, she waited, dormant like a distant star, holding its light and waiting for me to find my way back.

“Time can’t take away from who you are,” she says, like it isn’t something to be afraid of at all.

“It doesn’t get that privilege. It only carries you forward. You can always find your way back.”

Just remember who you are.

She doesn’t falter at the thought of time or growing up. She doesn’t crumble beneath the weight of it all. And in that moment, her easy courage frees a part of me I thought time had permanently claimed.

I think of all the things I once loved with my whole being. How easily my hands picked a paintbrush, a pencil for a sketch, how colour and mess and possibility felt like letting go instead of risks. I had told myself I outgrew those things, that leaving them behind was proof of becoming someone steadier, wiser. But standing here with her, I understand that love doesn’t disappear just because it’s set down. It waits. It gathers quietly, like paint drying on a forgotten canvas, ready to bloom again the moment you trust your hands to reach for it.

I find myself staring at her in awe while everything else falls still. I remember her with love, knowing she is the true wonder here, the souvenir of this place, the reason it exists at all. I see it in her eyes, the unguarded joy I once carried so easily, so simply.

Unwavering hope, still alive. Still beating.

And with that, a quiet pride hums through me, knowing I found my way back through her. I found myself. Beneath all the grief and regret that tried to consume me. The part of me that reached without hesitation and fear of making mistakes, that painted without asking whether it was worth the time. Except now, I don’t dismiss the patience I learned to carry with me. It makes sense now, to the version of me who needed it, who still does. A mistake, a loss, a smudge across the canvas was never ruination, only part of the art and its becoming.

“Remember,” she whispers.

A familiar warmth settles in me, recognition guiding my voice as it meets hers.

“We reach for the stars.”

We speak as one, and I marvel at how the words were already waiting in me, because they are not new, but words I still live by, written into memory the same way I once pressed it into the pages of a diary and believed with the kind of certainty only children have. Reaching for the stars was a reminder that even distance didn’t mean impossible. It meant that if I kept becoming, each day would take me far, sometimes feeling the glow of the stars, and sometimes simply knowing I was closer than before. That I wasn’t small. That there was always more waiting ahead no matter how high a hurdle rose. And standing beside her now, I feel it stir again, unchanged, waiting for me to reach as I once did.

Painting was once how I learned to grow within creativity, how doors opened without me even realizing I was turning their handles. I see it everywhere now—in the way a tree leans slightly off balance, in a bird cutting across a bleeding sunset, in flowers tilting their heads toward the warmth of the sun.

And beneath it all, I feel the little girl who saw the world as something to be touched with colour and brought to life, loving art for how she learned to see it.

Somewhere along the way, I mistook growing up for letting go, for masking creativity with the fear of imperfection. But the stars never asked for certainty. They asked for faith. For the courage to reach anyway, to believe that what you love is worth returning to, even after time has tried to convince you otherwise.

She lets go of my hand, as if holding on was only meant to last until I remembered how to reach on my own. A bright, satisfied grin blooms across her face, one she gives to me first and then to the sky, as if the sky is something her hands and her heart will always know how to love. I follow her gaze and watch as the night begins to shift—colours deepening, light bending softly across the stars, as if the night itself is listening, changing, just as we are.

I glance once more at the stars, who have stopped raging and now glow with a smug contentment, and the soaring moon, the smallest fracture of a grin on its face, offering all of its light to hold this moment for as long as the waves and sand collide. And as the waves return again and again to the shore, I know that nothing here was ever lost, only waiting to be found again.