The sky was overflowing with millions of bright little stars that seemed so far away. Specks. That’s all they looked like to us. Tiny dots that shimmered in the dark depths of the night. But stars are so much more than what we see. Kind of like people. When we look at a person we see their appearance. A speck of who they really are. And from this towel. On this cool summer night. Music faintly playing from some house around the block I couldn’t quite recognize. I thought about how much more a star really is. More than just a speck. More than just what I see from my eyes. 

I looked over at Adriana who seemed equally as in awe of the starry night as I was. “Wow” I sighed. “We made it”. She turned to me and smiled. She could tell exactly what I was thinking. “Summer” she replied.  It was the kind of night we had been waiting for, for the whole long and depressing school year. The kind of idea that kept us warm in the cold and darkness of winter. “Crazy isn’t it?” I asked. Not really to Adriana but more to myself. It was crazy. How long we had waited and anticipated on this idea of “the perfect summer”.  My friends and I had so many plans. So many bucket lists of things we would all do together. So many memories we would make.

We sat for a while in silence in admiration of the beautiful night and sky. But the silence was broken by the sound of Adriana pulling out her phone from her jean shorts pocket. She opened spotify and went for the first song on our Summer 2019 playlist. Our song. Our anthem. Waste it on me. To anyone else who didn’t know us it would have looked like we were being held hostage and forced to play that song an obnoxious amount of times in order to live. But to us it was like we were playing it for the first time every time we put it on. It was like a fresh new smell of your favorite cake that you didn’t even know was your favorite. And it just gets better and better every time you taste it. 

We started singing right on que. At this point it was like muscle memory. “You say love is messed up” we sang in more of a yell then a note. We looked like crazy people but I couldn’t care less. When the chorus hit we went crazy banging our hands to the beat on the grass and rolling around in a crazy dance that looked more like a spaz. I thought about nothing more then the feeling the music gave me. And how every time I’d put it on from now on it would bring me back to that night. The night of millions of stars and a clear night sky. The night of a warm summer breeze.  The night of thoughts and realizations I had never had before. Like a movie scene. 

I turned to Adriana and asked her about what I had been thinking about the whole night. “Don’t you think stars are kinda similar to people?” She looked at me puzzled. “What?” she laughed. “No, I’m serious,” I said. “There’s so many of them right?” She nodded. “Just like there are so many people in this world.” She nodded again but I could tell she was still confused on where I was going with this. To be honest I didn’t even know where I was going with this but never the less words kept spilling out of my mouth like a never ending pitcher of water. “But all stars” I continued “Are different. Not two the same. And you see how from down here all the stars look like little dots.” She didn’t answer but I could tell she was starting to understand. “But really if you were to go up to space you would see that a star is so much more than just a dot. It’s made up of millions of different parts and elements that make each star what it is.” “It’s like when you look at a person.” Adriana added “All you see is what they look like and automatically you judge them off of that one tiny little dot or speck of who they really are. “ She was starting to get it and now we just kept adding on to each other. “But, if you were to get to know them for who they are inside and learn about all the little parts that make them who they are you can see a person in a whole different way. You can learn who they really are. Like stars” I said. “Like stars.” She repeated. “Damn we’re wise” I said. We broke out into a contagious laughter and the stars above us seemed to laugh along with us.

I thought about how much I had learned that night. How much you can learn over something as little as looking at the stars. And, most of all, I thought about how many times I had judged someone before I even got to know them.  Just off the fact that they looked a certain way before even getting to know what kind of person they are. 

I made a deal with myself that night. That everytime I found myself judging someone based off of who they appear to be because of how they look I would remember this night. Remember that there is so much more to a person than how they dress and do their hair. And most importantly that I would only decide how I felt about someone after getting to know who they really are. Because in the end everyone is a star. Everyone looks a certain way and there’s nothing that can change that. But what we can change is how we choose to view people. How we choose to look at people or even better look past the outside. Look inside. Look at all the little parts. All the little memories. All the little hobbies and feelings and people that make each person who they are. Because that’s what’s really important.

                                                                                       

The end.