"It was just a dream," I said, disappointed, after getting startled by my own abrupt awakening. Seeing the light peering in through the blinds, I could tell I slept in, like I always used to do. I checked the time: 4:30 PM. "Great," I thought to myself, knowing I'm ruining my own life, starting with my biological clock. That never happened in my dream.


I decided I didn't feel like getting up, so I did what I always used to do. I stared up at my ceiling, lying in a way that my head was facing it while my feet were resting on the wall. A few hours passed like that, mindlessly thinking of the things I could've done and the things I could have been if that day or the day before I had gotten out of bed and done something during the day. I never did that in my dream.


I finally decided to get up at around 7 PM when the sun started to set, and the flickering lights of the stars lit up the sky, like when a happy person lights up a room full of gloomy people, only this time, they lit up for me to see from thousands and thousands of light years away. The sunset revealed a warm rose background, right across from which appeared one beautiful full moon, looking like the only pearl on the necklace of the sky. That little moment instantly became the highlight of my week—a moment I will never be prepared to forget.


I was always fascinated by the stars, the planets, our galaxy, and the universe. How we can't know just by looking at the stars which ones are alive today and which ones are dead, gone with a striking supernova years ago. How we don't know what's far behind the surface of last scattering, and likely we'll never know if there are more universes, more space. How we don't really know who or what made us, and there are only theories, assumptions, and religions, all made up or thought of, to serve the purpose of seizing the worry humans have about what happens after death. For many, the unknown is a series of thoughts that are difficult to handle, but for me, its concept is an ideal one. It always triggered my curiosity, never something I was scared of.


I love the feeling of peace, of not having to be perfect, of not having to know everything. I love the feeling of pressure leaving my mind, of not having to know what comes next, as I get to be in the present, waiting patiently for the future to figure it out, as the end could be either bad or good, or the perfect alliance of both. "That was in my dream!" I thought, as the dreams I once forgot about—the ones I created when I was awake, along with the ones similar to the one I had that same morning—the memory of which flashed before my eyes minutes after waking up. The one I always loved, it lived in the back of my mind, relentlessly reminding me of its existence shortly after falling asleep, but I still always seemed to forget. The peace the dream brought me, I felt it while I was awake.


As I realized a lack of imagination might have been the reason life didn't feel as close to a dream as it could have until I thought of space, I started to think about it more, the way I always dreamt of doing.


Reality and dreams are always colliding with each other; they do, in fact, make a whole out of their two beautiful halves—an image similar to what I can imagine two colliding galaxies make. Galaxies as close to our own and the ones surrounding it: Milky Way and Andromeda, the two biggest galaxies in our neighborhood of space. A collision severely dangerous for the stars near it, but only an astonishing view for the stars far enough to witness this uniquely gorgeous event without being involved in it. It all has to do with the perspective of it—the side you choose to look at it from. You can be so close to it that it crashes you, but you can also be too far to know it's happening, to know what's true. You have to try to be the perfect distance away and manage to stay observing from this exact perfect angle—something so close to being impossible that not many can figure it out. Being the perfect distance away so you don't miss it or get crashed in it, along with all the other stars and meteors that also made a failed attempt. A precise distance, just how gravity on our planet is precisely what it needs to be. If it was only a little weaker, Earth would fly away, ruining the solar system, but if it were to be a little stronger, it would crash into itself, ruining every trace of its existence along with every molecule of life that it was supposed to carry. In both cases, life would not exist on Earth as we know it. It's crucial for it to stay exactly the same for the planet to stay put together. But then maybe this distance, it might not be a certain one. Maybe it's different for everyone, like how the sun's gravity is way stronger than Earth's, while Mars's is way weaker, only this way everything stays put together: the planets, the stars, the galaxies, and the universe. Maybe that distance has to do with you—how far you need to see it from to have the full view.


Suddenly, I didn't feel fatigued anymore. Suddenly, I wanted to get out and do the things I thought about doing for hours on end after I woke up, day after day. And suddenly, it was possible—everything that holds you back has almost no importance compared to the endless space that lives in between every little thing that bothers you, your potential, and your passion, something no space will ever be able to ruin. Suddenly, it was not all just a dream anymore.