I thought I had seen stars until I road tripped to Arizona this year. 
I assumed the only natural wonder I would be seeing was the Grand Canyon,
But while the magnificent crater captured my attention in the day time,
At night it was overshadowed by the vast expanse of uninterrupted midnight sky. 
The few twinkling dots we stare up at every night do not compare
To these million brilliant orbs blanketing nature’s endless black velvet ceiling.

During our late-night drive across the state border the sky slowly began to come alive with tiny suns,
And like guests arriving late to a ball, they started to dance through the darkness.
I stared up through the open sun roof,
Thinking that it should have been created as a window to the stars,
And let the frigid desert air sweep over my face, turning my nose numb.
I laughed out loud,
But the sound was carried off by the wind,
And sent to go live amongst the dazzling Grand Canyon State stars.
 
In that moment I was truly happy. 
Not a jump-for-joy kind of happy but a half-asleep kind of happy. 
One that hits you in the quiet hours of the night,
When you are reminded that you live in a galaxy with pearls for stars. 
One that hits you when you have tear stains on your cheeks and puffy red eyes,
When you are waist deep in tissues and heartbreak but your best friend tells you a joke,
And the lump in your throat emerges as a croak of laughter, instead of a sob. 
One that hits you when you leave a movie theater in the middle of summer and darkness has suddenly fallen,
The blistering heat is replaced by a cool nighttime breeze,
The sound of crickets fill the air,
And you sigh and smile because the sun still sets even if you aren’t there to see it. 

In these moments the world feels like the final song of a coffee shop singer’s set list,
And you glow with warm nostalgia for all the other moments in your life that made you feel
This beautiful sun-kissed bliss,
This breathtaking happiness,
This overwhelming contentment,
And you almost want to shed a tear because you know this moment, like all the others,
Will come to an end.

The beauty of life, I think,
Is that it is not always beautiful.
Most of the time it makes us want to pull our hair out.
It plops us at the edge of a volcano and leaves us there until we chose to dive in or fall off,
Neither choice any less painful than the other.
It gives us a fishing line but no bait.
It gives us wood to fuel our fire but blows out the flames as soon as the first log catches,
And it stabs our backs with the same hand that was once interlaced in our own.

But every so often,
In between those back aches and stomach pains
We stumble across the little gold nugget of a moment,
That makes all our water taste like sparkling lemonade.
It turns all our problems into banana splits,
And all our stars to pearls,
And it makes every other moment that we did not feel this beautiful warmth seem trivial.
Everything seems to fall into place for just a minute,
(Or longer if you choose to sunbathe in your own personal rays,
Until your skin turns golden brown).
You remember how incredible the world is.
You remember how incredible you are.
And you look up at the pearly white stars and you feel utterly, completely intoxicated with joy.

These are the moments that keep us going.
This feeling is why we keep wishing on eyelashes and birthday candles and shooting stars,
Why we keep knocking on wood and throwing salt over our shoulders,
Why we keep searching for the light at the end of the painfully long tunnel.
Because maybe, by some miracle,
Our lives will be blissfully interrupted by a sunset we choose to take the time to watch,
Or a sip of coffee with just the right amount of milk.
These simple instances that shake up our lives just the smallest amount,
That cause the champagne to bubble over the sides of the glass,
That turn up the brightness on our inevitably average routines,
That turn a few stars into a million tiny pearls,
These are what make each day worth it.