Lessons From A Shooting Star

Once in a while, you might have the rare chance of seeing a shooting star, as it briefly blazes across the evening sky.

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Likewise, you might also have the similarly rare chance of meeting someone who is probably the one you have been looking for - the love of your life.

Someone who is probably sent to you from the heavens, as an answer to your prayers.

There is always a chance that this someone will fill the emptiness in your life, thus completing you, creating that ever elusive happy fairy tale ending, and if you were lucky, you would live happily ever after.

But the lucky ones happen to be locked in the pages of children’s books.

You might be not one of them.

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Then you start to ask yourself. Why is it, that just when you find that special someone, just when you are ready to take the risk of falling in (and out of) love, that special someone simply vanishes in mid-air?

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I call it the Shooting Star Phenomenon.

Everytime (although on rare occasions) I see a shooting star, I realize that it just appears without warning. In a blink of an eye, it is gone. And the evening sky becomes just as it was, as though nothing happened.

I understand that when I see a shooting star, not everyone around may have had the chance to see it too.

This is what makes a shooting star special.

It is a sight to behold. For me alone, I guess, and not for everyone. Spectacular. For one brief moment in the night, it appears, then even before I gasp and jump for joy (or even before I make a wish), it is gone. Without a trace. Without a sound.

Then the shooting star just becomes a memory. And everything around is still.

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Love is probably like a shooting star after all.

It may come without warning, then after blazing into your life for one shining moment, it fades out of sight.

But you have to be thankful.

Not everyone may experience love, be it long or brief. Not everyone may find love. You should be glad you were given the chance to see one.

Think of that special someone as a shooting star. No matter how beautiful it is, you cannot hold it in your hands. It comes and goes no matter how hard you try to keep it for yourself.

Just be glad it showed up in your night sky. Be glad that you were able to see it.

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But a shooting star never leaves a mark as it traverses the sky. On the other hand, love does. Once it goes, nothing is ever the same. So when you hear someone say, “I will always be the same person you knew,” or “I won’t change, and I hope you won’t change,” or “we will always be friends”, or “take care, keep in touch and I hope to see you again”… if you ever hear these words, don’t listen. Because it’s all bullshit. Likewise, try your best not to promise these words, because you know you would be lying.

There will be a growing distance henceforth, and the world is no longer the way it used to be. Trust me on this.

The moment you parted, you both started to change already. And the world around you… it changed too. And the distance keeps on growing, even if someday you meet again, even if you try to remain friends, even if you say you still love each other. The saddest part is that what I am saying is darn true.

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A shooting star does not last longer than a second (or so I observed). So much like love.

And neither does love last forever, contrary to popular belief that it does. But it doesn’t.

Because sadly, forever is not for mortals like us.

But that would be another topic. I will explain it later.


- John Emmanuel T. Manalo, MD
  May 28, 2008