I need to stop taking pictures of the moon.

Every time I see a beautiful moon, I feel compelled to capture it inside my phone and keep it forever, because the moon is like a snowflake. It, with the night, will melt into the morning and there will never be one like it again.

The moon doesn’t really disappear to be replaced the next night with another moon; every night there is still the same space egg in the sky. But every moon is very different in phases and stages; it waxes and wanes—sometimes you can’t even see it from behind the clouds, and if you can, it is only an ethereal glowing dot in the fog. Sometimes it is full and large, sitting proudly like the sky tortilla it is in all of its glory. Sometimes it’s only a toenail, and others it wakes up too early or stays up too late. The moon always looks different.

Sometimes the moon is so beautiful that as I drive by I can’t resist rolling down the window and snapping a photo. I’ll take one and then it will already be obscured by trees or houses and I’ll have to give up. Usually, to my disappointment the photo that I took makes the stunning celestial rock that I just beheld look like a distant streetlight.

The moon is fleeting and cannot be captured with a mere phone camera from the window of a moving car. I know this very well, and yet whenever I see a gorgeous display of the moon, I try to steal its image anyway. Simply looking at it and enjoying its beauty is unbearable because I know that in a few seconds the perspective I have of the moon will end.

I want to save the moon from time. In fact, I want to save everyone from time. I want to capture the beauty of the people I love and the moments that make me happy because I know that they will age, relationships will change, those moments will turn into memories, and we will make new moments that--yes--are very beautiful, but not the same.

Adolescence is fleeting and cannot be captured with a mere phone camera in the hands of a girl who needs to stop holding on so tightly. Life is beautiful, so don’t try to stop it, copy it, and keep it in a jar--live it.

Stop trying to save everyone and everything from time.

Stop taking pictures of the moon and instead look at it for the fleeting moment that you can, because it is beautiful and it will never be the same again.