The Stars Don't Lie

by Boo Walker

My father said my drive comes from a need to fill a void in my life. Since when did the reasons we worked hard matter? They didn’t put your motivations in your obituary, only your accomplishments.

Who in their right mind would want to go back to that small-minded backwoods colony where dreams died a slow death?

Mrs. Cartwright had said, “I’m not sure if it was Einstein who said it, but no matter. It does the trick. ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.’ Which one do you choose, Carver?”

I took a deep breath and let out the last ashes of the dead part of me, blowing them up there toward the sky, thinking I’d finally, after all these years, found the answers in the stars.

You can’t know how great love is until you’re in it, and you can’t know the heartache either.

There is no feeling in the world like love, and I thought I’d lost it forever, like a star burning out.”

Maybe for the first time in my life, I was ready to love. Because for the first time in my life, I loved myself.

It was a relief to know I no longer had to live my life with one eye on the rearview mirror.

love is worth the risk, because a life without love isn’t a life at all.