Under the Blanket

Photo by Greg Rakozy Unsplash

When I was a teenager, I loved spending hours gazing at the night sky. I knew the constellations by heart, where the Milky Way left its trail, which of those lights were truly stars, which were planets, and which were other cosmic bodies.I loved it because, beyond seeing what was before my eyes, those moments were perfect for letting my mind wander through my future and my dreams.

The stars and the universe, so far from my hands, also stood for a future and dreams I still couldn’t reach. And between them and me, lying on the ground, there was a great mass of air pressing against my skin.

Life in the present isn’t as incredible as I imagined life in the future could be. To reach the blue sky, you first have to cross the orange- and red-tinged horizon—a path marked by solitude and, at times, pain.

That’s what I felt as the years went by. Some dreams I managed to fulfill, but others… I had to adapt them to what reality could, in fact, offer me.

I also realized that the great mass of air pressing on me isn’t only an external force. The pressure, the fear, the criticism also came from within. And at times, I can be more cruel to myself than any other human being could ever be.

Sometimes, along the way, I wished for a blanket to shield me from the cold night while I looked at the sky. I wanted to be a child again, when I believed the blanket was the greatest weapon against the monsters and demons that might be lurking outside, lying in wait.

Yet what I discovered, despite my insistence on wanting to go back in time, is that this blanket can’t protect me from what comes from outside nor from what comes from within myself. And that my greatest weapon is, in truth, discovering who I am and allowing the universe to look at me, just as I look at it.

Only then can the starlight open a path to that dreaming teenager lying on the cold ground, cutting through the pressures and the monsters. And maybe that’s how I can look at myself with kindness and care, letting my future and my present become equally important.

• Author: Eduarda L. de Oliveira