Counting Stars
By One Republic
I’ll get into the lyrics of this
song in a minute. I haven’t heard it in
a couple years, but listening to it on my way home from work today brought me
right back to a place in time when I was fighting for my life. I can almost remember the very moment this
song came alive to me. I had heard it
several times on the radio, and while I thought it had a catchy tune, it didn’t
really mean anything. Yet, one afternoon I found myself sitting by the lake at
my apartment on Alvin Street, watching the sun glisten on the water’s surface, ducks
flying overhead, a cool breeze in the air, when a soft thought popped into my
mind, whispering to me that nobody cared, that all the sacrifices I’d made in
my life were for nothing, that all the love I gave was never returned, that I
didn’t matter. I’d just been invited to
be part of an anthology with some of the writers I admired, had no one with
which to celebrate my achievement. I thought I could easily slip into that
cold, frigid lake and no one would even notice this selfish, rebellious,
unlovable woman was gone. I felt the
pressure and judgment of the world on my shoulders. All the voices of the people who told me I was
making a mistake by getting a divorce, that I was disobeying and disappointing
my god, that I was being rebellious and selfish because I wanted to be in love,
that what I wanted was stupid, a fairy tale. I had the world. I had a good career. I had a good marriage. I
had a good family. I had a good inheritance. I had a good reputation. I had a
picture-picture resume life. My writing
career was taking off, and I was beloved and respected by my community; a
pillar they called me, a monument of strength of character. I had everything a good Christian woman
desired in her life. Someone told me once that I was selfish for not being
content with the life I had, that my desire to want more, was an insult to the
god I claimed I loved. How could God
love me for being so selfish? To want more was to distrust God.
I didn’t want riches. I didn’t
want fame. I had opportunity to have both and walked away. I just wanted to be
loved, to be wanted, to be desired… to be heard, to matter, to make a
difference in this cold world, for humanity to love each other, not hate each
other proving who was right. I wanted fathers not to hurt their little girls,
and mothers not to be ashamed and hide behind pills, and brothers that didn’t
steal and lie to each other, or sisters who supported each other and not be in competition,
and kids who didn’t take the strength of their parents as a sign of not caring,
and parents who remembered their kids were not their property but individual
human beings with their own thoughts, ideas, plans and dreams. I felt at odds
with the universe.
I closed my eyes, felt the warm
sun on my face, slipped my feet out of my shoes and edged by toes toward the
cold water of the lake’s edge when this song suddenly came on my iPod and
filled my ears, and the tears spilled down my face. This was a song from me, to me, in that
moment. My inner-self called out to my
spiritual-self, and the words never meant something more beautiful than what
they did that cold, cold autumn afternoon.
Lately I been, I been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby I been, I been prayin' hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Yeah, we'll be counting stars
Counting stars… wow! One of my
favorite quotes in the world, something that gave me strength through the years
was from A Knights Tale when a declaration was made to change a person’s stars,
to change the destiny the world had given them, to be more than what society
deemed as acceptable. Before that movie even came out, my best friend in the
world – who became the love of my life, made a promise that we would rise above
our stations in life and change our stars. I fought my whole life to be more than what I
was born into, more than what society dictated, and I worked hard my whole life
to rise above my beginning, my inheritance, and my lot in life. No one was going to tell me my limits. I pushed them, and I soared well above them. When
my drug-dealing father was arrested, I was deemed a miscreant, told by a
bigshot D.A. at the age of sixteen I was going to grow up and be nothing more
than one of my father’s whore drug runners, a high-school dropout, and in
prison before twenty. I changed my stars and proved them wrong,
living a clean life, a vanilla life free of drugs, gangs, cartels, and
miscreants. When I lost a college scholarship because I
became a teen mother, and chose to keep and raise my baby, I changed my stars
by paying my own way through college, and working three jobs at the same time
supporting myself. When the love of my life died in combat and left me alone in
this world, I still remember the promises we made to change our stars. I never forgot.
I will never forget. I’m not counting
one star… I’m counting on changing many, many, many, many, many more stars. I have,
and I will change even more. I’m still counting them, baby.
I see this life
Like a swinging vine
Swing my heart across the line
In my faces flashing signs
Seek it out and ye shall find
Life isn’t about what comes at
you or is presented to you. You have to
chase it down. You have to go after what
you want. You have to take a chance.
Yes, you can fall. Hell, you will probably fall a lot more than you’ll
ever fly. Yes, you can grab hold of a weak vine and it causes you to crash to
the ground, but that doesn’t mean you stop swinging. It means you get back up and grab the next
one and see where it takes you.
The old, but I'm not that old
Young, but I'm not that bold
And I don't think the world is sold
I'm just doing what we're told
Excuses. The world if full of them, but we have to be
willing to argue back with it, set our own limits, tell ourselves what we are
going to do and how we’re going to do it.
We can’t be afraid. We can’t
think inside the box. Don’t allow ourselves
to be put in a box… too old, too young, too weak, too strong, too fat, too
skinny, too uneducated, too educated, too smart, too dumb, too experienced, too
inexperienced. Tell the world to go fuck
itself, and stop doing what it tells you.
I, feel something so right
Doing the wrong thing
I, feel something so wrong
But doing the right thing
I could lie, could lie, could lie
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive
You can’t change or count your
stars if you’re too busy living under everyone else’s judgements, ideas, and
limits. You determine what’s right and
what’s wrong for YOU and tell everyone else to go fuck themselves. Am I disappointing my god? That’s between me and my god and nobody else’s
business. Live your own dream. Find someone that supports that dream, and
made damned sure that if you’re supporting someone else’s dream, that it’s
their dream and not yours for them. You’ve got no right to dream for someone
else.
I feel the love
And I feel it burn
Down this river every turn
Hope is a four letter word
Make that money
Watch it burn
Looking for the world’s
definition of love or success, it’ll never work, it’ll never satisfy, and it’ll
always burn. It’s fire, it’s poison, it’s
shallow, and it stings. Too many people
fall in love with the idea, the dream, the image of what they believe is love,
instead of falling in love with the real person right in front of them. When they
get disappointment because the person doesn’t live up to the perfect image that
was created in their minds, they blame the person instead of themselves for
building impossible standards anyone could ever hope to reach. It’s not
fair. We have to come to a maturity in
our lives so that when we look at someone we are not naïve to their flaws, but
embrace them, and love them just as they are in spite of them, not only loving
the truth of who they are, but for the potential of who they’re capable of
being because they too hold the power to change their own stars. The first step
to counting stars is seeing the truth, exactly as it is in all its ugliness.
But when we can’t even see the truth of the stars in front of us, how can we expect
to change anything? We change nothing
and then we live our lives chasing THINGS… things that will burn or turn to
rust, things we cannot control, cannot contain, things that slip right through
our fingers and burn in front of us. We exchange our stars for temporary
things, for temporary love, for temporary people… ideals instead of reality,
fantasies instead of truths, we lose out on real love for infatuation and lust.
I could lie, could lie, could lie
Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly
Take that money and watch it burn
Sink in the river the lessons I learned
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive
Songwriters: RYAN TEDDER
© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Can’t you feel it? This song reminded me of the promise I made
as a hopeful fourteen-year old girl, sitting with her back against her locker
next to this dorky, long-legged awkward boy named James, dreaming with our
young, naïve hearts of how we were going to change our stars. I felt that
promise that day by the cold lake through this song, and it stirred something
deep within me, and it’s stirring something else within me today. I heard that familiar whisper during my flu
delirium, reminding me that my love hasn’t found me, that though I’m loved, I’m
never chosen, I’m never fought for, and that if I want anything in this world I’m
going to have to fight for it on my own or provide it for myself. I understand
now, I need a star counter, because I’m a star counter. I could never be content with someone that
can’t even recognize their own stars, much less who isn’t constantly counting new ones. I won’t ever be silent. I won’t
ever be content. I am bigger than this life, much more than the boxes
offer. I am at odds with the universe, because
I too am expanding, seeking, and counting stars… and it’s time I got back to
it.
I too am a star. My own sun, shining brightly, soaring in this
universe, But I’m not one to be caught so easily. If you can’t even see me, the
real me, then maybe I’m just a little too bright or a little too hot for you,
or you just don’t belong in my universe.
Till next time,
~T.L. Gray
