Even then

“The stars look very different today.” - David Bowie

I’ve been enamored with the stars for as long as I can remember. The way they make you feel jarringly insignificant yet strangely protected. The way you can look up and believe that you could reach up and pluck one from the sky, and that, yes, someone else is probably looking up at them, too. 

I’ve always liked the idea that they might chart a map — not just of the universe, but of us. That each of us are guided by our own constellations that stay in place, steady and glowing, no matter how far we drift. Quiet observers of everything we’ve stumbled through.

Some nights I catch myself looking for a pattern I swear I used to know by heart.

It’s still there, I think. Just not where I left it. 

The same stars were there the night you broke an arm falling off the monkey bars in kindergarten and the night you moved to northern Indiana for college — and they’ll be there the night you move out. 

The stars have always been there with you. When you’d pack up and leave or knock on doors of new beginnings — through all of it. And isn’t that a romantic thought? 

Maybe that’s why I always notice the stars on the walk home. 

The walk back, with music fading behind me, someone laughing ahead, and the night so quiet it hums.

“God only knows what I’d be without you.” - The Beach Boys

The walk back always feels shorter. Maybe it’s the lowered inhibitions. Maybe it’s muscle memory. Maybe it’s because we’re talking the entire time, about nothing, about everything. Someone’s recounting a text they shouldn’t have sent; someone else is trying to remember where they left their jacket. 

We’ve done this so many times. Wandering back from basements that smell like youthful optimism and whatever was in that jungle juice. Circling blocks while waiting for the Uber, after nights that felt like placeholders but still somehow important.

Let’s huddle together to keep warm. Someone ask the driver to play “Clarity.” The pitchers we split at CJ’s always taste stronger with each sip. Probably because we never properly keep track of whose turn it is to finish it. The Olf’s bathroom stall locks have never worked, but we hold the door shut for each other like it’s instinct. 

This is what I’ll remember. The way someone would say “let’s just walk” and we would, even when it’s freezing. Even when we’re tired. 

The time I bawled my eyes out on Bella’s futon and she buried me in all her blankets and pillows so I could go to sleep without having to move. Sitting at our kitchen island with Emma, rehashing a situation we’ve dissected a dozen times, as she tells me my feelings are valid and I let myself believe it. How Claire always has a top for me to borrow and a hug to spare. How Casey spends twenty minutes explaining the rules to a domino game only for us to forget by the second round. The shared playlist that Kate and I made in freshman year that has continued to soundtrack cramming sessions and car rides. The vase of flowers that Corinne arranges at Irish Gardens, always in bloom, always in the right colors. 

I used to think love had to be declared to be real, like shouted-from-a-rooftop, boombox-outside-the-window declared. 

But we were always saying it, just not out loud. We said it when we found ourselves in each other’s dorm rooms more often than our own. By grabbing two cups of coffee instead of one. By showing up. And each time someone stayed until the worst part passed.

There’s a drawer in my room that never quite closes fully. A crumpled wristband from a formal. A copy of The Observer from December 2022, folded in half with my name circled in purple ink by a friend who read it first. A pair of earrings that don’t match anything, but belong to a night I’d never take back.

The things I didn’t mean to keep, but did. The things that stuck around without having to be asked. 

“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” - Emily Dickinson

Not every season here was kind. Some came in quietly and stayed too long. In the margins of the most golden moments were also the messy, ordinary days — ones that blurred into each other like paint left out in the rain. There were days I didn’t want to do much of anything. Nights when I lay awake replaying conversations that didn’t matter and others that really did. Times I missed home and times I didn’t know what home was. 

I think I am learning how to keep the lanterns steady — even when they flicker. And I’ve never had to learn alone. They glow a little warmer when someone is walking with you. 

But in the moments that did feel like mine alone, I’ve learned that not every low needs to be explained. I’ve learned that your people don’t need you to be okay all the time. Just real.

I’ve learned that progress is rarely linear and never cinematic. Sometimes it’s just drinking water and texting back and getting through your Tuesday.

I’ve learned that growth is quieter than I expected. That contentment can be, too. 

And I’ve learned that you don’t always recognize the big turning points while they’re happening. Only when you’re looking back, a little further down the line. The light doesn’t need to reveal the whole road — just enough to see what’s in front of you.

“We can’t return, we can only look behind.” - Joni Mitchell

And what a view. This is my last time writing for The Observer. I’ve been putting it off, mostly because I don’t want to write like I’m leaving.

I don’t know how to end this column. Or this year. Or this phase of my life, this world we shared. 

But I keep thinking about the stars. How we’ve all looked up at them, sometimes at the same time, sometimes without realizing. How they’ll always be there, and always have been. 

Even when everything else is shifting. Even when you were 18 and unsure, or 22 and pretending not to be.

Soon, I’ll wear a cap that doesn’t fit and cross a stage in heels I’ve barely tried walking in. I’ll smile for the camera, and I’ll probably cry to the Alma Mater, and the whole thing will feel too big and too small at the same time. We’ll go other places. We’ll find new bars that have bathrooms with locks that work and pitchers that don’t make you wince.

But I hope we remember the times we linked arms and told ourselves it wasn’t that cold, even when it was. 

I hope we still walk together — even if it’s not back to campus, even if it’s not midnight, even if the streets are new.