I am stardust.

[~Aoria-sama~]

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XX
I keep remembering this bedtime story my mother used to tell me when I was really small. You know, before she walked out on me and my daddy. It’s not a happy story, unlike a lot of the other story books we used to read. Still, it was one of my favorites that she used to read to me.  Even when my mommy would start to cry because of how sad it was. Even though it made me sad, too. We would curl up in my bed and read the story together - and these are the moments that make me less angry with her for leaving, now.

XX

It was called ‘The Caterpillar and The Butterfly’.

Let me think, it went like this…

X

The sun was high in the sky, the air was clean and pleasant. 

“What a nice day for a walk,” said John, as he walked through the forest.

“I can see the beautiful trees, smell the fresh air. Even all the little critters are thriving.” John mumbles to himself, smiling a happy smile.

But out of the corner of his eye does he spot a single caterpillar pod.

“Oh, how neat, a cocoon - and it looks like the caterpillar is working its way out to its new life of being a beautiful butterfly.”

Fascinated, John sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the small hole in the cocoon that it had managed to make. After a while, John realized the butterfly had stopped making any progress at all. It had no strength to continue and go further.  “I can’t watch this any longer, I need to help it!” John exclaims, as he takes out a pair of scissors to nip at the remaining bit of the cocoon. Only then is the butterfly able to escape from its pod.

XX

But it does not unfurl its wings, nor does it fly away. The butterfly sits on a leaf, its body swollen, and its wings crumpled.  John continued to watch the butterfly, hoping its wings would enlarge - that the butterfly would be able to support itself and fly away.

XX

But neither happens. In fact, the butterfly spends the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed, shriveled up wings. It was never able to fly.

XX

What John in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon is nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings - so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

XX

XX

“Oh no!” says John, "What have I done?”

XX

X

I think that story taught me a few things. One thing is that we should not rush life. Patience is divine and there is always a reason for everything. Secondly, every struggle makes us strong and that from those struggles - we evolve into what we are meant to be. But it also makes me think about how fragile life can be.

XX

So, as I look at my new cousin, a small baby wrapped up in a blanket in my Auntie Millie’s arms, I suddenly want to tell her this story. I want to tell her how fragile her life is and how you need to treat it with a sense of tenderness in order for it to flow naturally. In these moments, when I look at her. My heart blooms and I would give anything to protect her. But I know there will be moments where I need to let her grow organically, too, and I think that’s just as important. I don’t want my baby cousin to be a crumpled-up butterfly.

XX

It’s weird seeing a whole baby, while Meranthe is plagued with so much death. It makes me think about how much life and death goes hand in hand - how one cannot exist without the other. But I don’t think death is up for anyone to decide, it's something that is supposed to happen naturally - not by anyone else’s hand. It’s scary to think that there are people out there who so willingly kill other people. They kill for greed, anger, jealousy, power.

X

But how am I supposed to judge a creature when it is their instinct to kill?

How am I supposed to decide between right and wrong when it is purely natural?

X

My best friend saved my life the other day, but he also tried to kill me. I have so many friends.

I was given my first ever gift by someone who isn’t related to me.

I opened a whole business, and it has bloomed into something more than I could ever dream of.

I’ve started my first big project.

X

I have tasted success at the young age of thirteen-

So why am I still so afraid?

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