On one sleepless night, I stared up at my ceiling and wished for stars. Not in the cosmic sense, though city life gave me a newfound appreciation for the constellations beyond our light polluted skies. Instead, on that night, I lay in my restless bed of tangled sheets and pillow walls, staring into the dark void of my ceiling and longing for something I hadn’t thought of in years: glow-in-the-dark, plastic stars. The most artificial of beauty was all I could think of.

My older sister and I always shared a room, since neither of us could stand living in close quarters with our younger sister Amanda. We’re very close now, don’t worry!) Who would scratch and bite us any chance she had. Brilliant little girl, she was—she got her own room out of it. However, it didn’t matter because we rarely minded our arrangement. We had twin beds on either side of the room during our younger years.

These were upgraded to a bunk bed for middle school.

It was a very exciting change. Our room’s theme graduated from cows and sunflowers to Winnie The Pooh (seems like we slid backwards with that one) and we talked our mom into buying us a packet of plastic, glow-in-the-dark stars that came with a stick of gray putty to adhere them to our ceiling. I had dreams of painting the ceiling like a sky and our floor as the ocean, and those stars were the perfectly low-fuss starting point for my vision.

The bottom bunk was a full sized bed with the obvious perk of extra room, but the twin top bunk was the top bunk, which was somehow a perk all its own to kids like me who loved climbing a ladder at the sleepiest moments of their days. Though I was a big-time sleepwalker, I took the top and my big sister moved in to the bottom bunk. She stuck a photo of her boyfriend—long blonde ponytail, drumsticks in hand—between the slats of the bed frame above her; I stuck a cluster of stars—various sizes, five perfect corners on each—on the ceiling above me. We never got around to painting that ocean floor. However, we ripped up our ruined carpet and covered it in temporary loves with permanent markers. Walter, Mike, Leo, Justin. 

The stars will lose their glow.

In the darkness, the rest of our hodgepodge decor didn’t matter. Our self made constellations were all I could see. It’s glowing bright from the artificial light they soaked up during those hectic hours before bedtime. I’d turn off the lights and let the stars guide me toward the ladder, climb the hollow aluminum rungs [clingClangCLACK like the plumbing of an old, haunted house] and lie in bed. More often than not, I would stay awake all night and read horror novels. Sometimes, I fret about every detail of the day prior and the one coming. Sometimes I’d sleepwalk and take a bath fully clothed. Also, sometimes I call my grandma in the middle of the night. I wake my mom and ask her strange and dream-induced questions.

Most nights, I’d hit my head on the ceiling fan from climbing down the stairs mid-sleep to go to the bathroom. Hopelessly waking myself past the point of going back to bed. But sometimes, when I was lucky and got my bedtime ritual down just right. I say my prayer, kiss Snowball on her stuffed noggin and knock on wood 28 times, scratch my neck in the same spot on the left. I’d fade into sleep as soon as the stars lost their glow. Those nights were the best nights. Those nights were like checking the clock and seeing 11:11, just in time to make a wish—and believing that’s all it took for a wish to come true.

As an adult, I’ve rarely thought of my childhood as a happy one.

Grateful as I am for the way life molded me and vice versa. My formative years were punctuated by trauma that left me a tiny basket case full of bellyaches and infinite tears. Sometimes it’s difficult to see past those bigger issues — a cloudy cataract obscuring anything lovely — but at the time, I really didn’t know anything else.

It was my normal.

I knew it wasn’t good and hoped it wasn’t right—but for all I knew, it was The Way It Was. My childhood was like one of those Magic Eye posters they’d sell at mall kiosks in the 90s; it was a total chaotic mess. However, if you let your eyes go out of focus, you could see the hidden magic that was promised. I held on tight to those bright spots: our after school naps with mom and Wednesdays and beach weekends with Grandma and Grandpa. Also, I remember movie and ice cream dates with Moe and Papa and playing in the children’s museum after hours (our mom was their cleaning lady). I hold on to clubhouses and climbing trees.

Also, I remember the many strays and rescues we took in, and days with our horses at the stables. It was our best friends, our sanctuary. Back then, I thought: if I could cherrypick those moments and scatter them across the night sky, making new constellations of only my best memories, I might forget the surrounding darkness and what was cloaked beneath it. I could drink from a cup half full and gaze upward and forward. No need to look back—lights out, stars just bright enough to light my way toward a better future.

In less flowery terms, I learned to compartmentalize.

I was good at it until I absolutely wasn’t, and then the cycle would keep going. I busied myself with schoolwork, our horses, and arguing with my sisters. We were swooning over actors and boy bands, anything that made me feel more like a normal kid. The normalcy helped me become a normal kid concerned with The Way It Was and wasn’t a baby about it. Also, I was never afraid of the dark; I bathed in it.

I read scary novels that made my life seem comparatively safe; so, I kept my eyes fixed on the glowing stars above me to forget what was hiding in the shadows. But when my seams started unraveling at a frighteningly early age. I learned the hard way: stars collapse, and half full cups become quite empty. If I never turned on the lights, the stars would lose their glow. That darkness, in turn, would swallow me whole. 

And sometimes it did. But I’d always find my way back out.

Throughout 2019, I was trudging along through a perpetual fog. Not drowning, not thrashing, just slowly and haphazardly moving through it like I was sleepwalking—something I hadn’t done since college. There were days and weeks when it was all too much, and taking inventory of old skeletons and trying to put everything in order made my limbs and mind so heavy that I had a hard time functioning. But even in my dreamlike state and lowest of lows, I found true moments of happiness and smiles and laughter through my purest love: Miku. On the worst of days, I could take one look at her and feel completely new. 

My grief.

When she took her last breath, all the light went out of my world. She was my stars. I’d gotten so used to her light, I must have forgotten what true darkness was. Everything I wept and worried about all year, save for the loss of my Oba and our sweet, funny little cat Vester, suddenly felt completely trivial by comparison. And in my grief, I was furious with everyone who put their burden on me, just because they knew I’d bear it.

I was furious over the time I should’ve been living in the moment of the lovely life I’ve created for myself, but instead was weeping and worrying and losing my hair over things I couldn’t control. That when I was trying to fix everyone else’s problems and destroying myself in the process, I could’ve been blissful with her and Vester in their last days. With my beautiful little family, now short by two.

I fell into what felt like infinite darkness. The stars had lost their glow, and I couldn’t find my way out. 

I spiraled until it felt like I couldn’t get any lower. I was barely eating, started sleep walking again, would have night terrors where I’d hit myself until I was bruised or cut my face with my nails. Also, I had a hard time socializing, but was so lucky to have friends and family who were patient and kind, checking in on me and trying to lift my spirits. There were days when I’d drag myself out of bed and compartmentalize, because I had to work to pay my bills or I didn’t want to ruin Bobby’s day, and there were days when I’d genuinely have a great day and feel like I was on the mend.

But when I wasn’t distracted, I was perpetually falling apart. I made myself physically ill, I picked stupid fights with Bobby just to have a reason to scream, I had days when I never got out of bed. It wasn’t fair to Bobby or anyone else around me, and it made me hate myself — or at least this unstable, toxic version of myself. I’d lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, wishing for stars and seeing nothing but darkness.

And then the pandemic happened.

2020 isolated us in a way that made me confront my issues and start the long and difficult road to healing, because what else was there to do? I couldn’t distract myself, couldn’t hop on a plane to meet a friend and forget about my problems, didn’t have enough work to dive into. I feel tremendously guilty when I think about how much the circumstances of 2020 ended up helping me in a way, when so many people suffered and even lost their lives because of the pandemic. But the truth is, freeing myself from distractions and being forced to sit still and deal with reality instead of flipping between my usual, polar opposite choices of a) completely fall apart and be non-functioning or b) pretend like everything is okay and busy myself — that made me realize a lot of things.

For one, it was time to go home. I needed to go home. And two? I needed to take care of myself.

It was time for me to get serious about therapy, and eventually, medication.

Truthfully, it took several months for me to get to the taking care of myself part — and I’ll get into that part, the happy outcome part and how things have changed for me, in another post. It’s probably going to be a three parter, because you know I like to ramble. Since I still like to use this blog as a diary and makeshift time capsule of personal milestones, I felt like I needed to talk a little bit more about the major life changes of the past couple of years. But I can’t talk about now without acknowledging the struggle to get here.

I still thank my artificial, glow in the dark, lucky stars for giving me some light in what could have been total darkness — and I know now, more than ever, how healing an animal’s love can be. As I type this, I have a cozy, snuggly Kitty Boos lying on my arm and limiting its mobility, warming my heart.

I’ll never, ever turn down a look on the bright side or the emotional support of a furry friend.

But I think, for the first time, I’m looking at life through a clearer lens. And it doesn’t feel impossible.

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