I was lying face up on the ground in my backyard looking up into the stars. This particular night, in a small town in Upstate New York, the stars were actually visible. Usually the clouds would cover the few that did show themselves, creating an atmosphere of perpetual gloom over the summer nights but tonight...tonight the sky was clear, and there were so many stars.
I heard my neighbor, barely louder than a whisper, begin pointing out constellations, naming and placing them, telling the story of each one. After a while, her voice faded to a dull hum, and I felt my eyes begin to tear up. I had no reason to be upset, I was perfectly happy right where I was but the tears came anyway.
Someone told me that the universe is constantly expanding. That it has no definite end or beginning because it has no ending and therefore no starting place. That there are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and each of those galaxies could contain more than 10 billion stars, all living and dying at a constant rate. The human eye, however, can only see about 3,000 of those 10 billion stars and in my blurry tear filled eyes I could only see a few.
I cried for a long time. I cried until my dried up tears were replaced with fresh, wet ones. I cried until I felt my muscles cramp, and my heart ache and my  body shudder, begging me to make it stop but letting the tears come anyway. I cried until I had nothing left. I cried because I had nothing left. I was in a universe with planets and stars and galaxies and constellations and I was lying on the wet grass in my backyard crying because I was just a person on a planet in a universe that had no end and I was crying because in that moment I was small and I had everything and I had nothing at all and I had no one and I was obsolete, I was irrelevant, and I was nothing.

My entire childhood, my entire life, all I ever wanted was friends. I wanted people who would laugh at my jokes, and stay up with me late at night, and give me advice and tell me I was someone worth keeping around. I didn’t have friends growing up. I kept to myself, a painfully shy, small, passive kid who wanted nothing more than to be noticed, even if it meant in a negative way. To be noticed would always be better than not being seen at all.
My brother was different. I learned to be social because my brother had it down to a science. I studied him, wondering why if we came from the same family how we could be so different. He always knew the right things to say. He had perfect delivery, every one liner, every pun every joke was received with high praise. He was a master. He knew when to keep joking and when to hold off. He knew how to console, how to uplift, and how to control anyone by simply flashing a smile and saying the right thing at the right time.
It was fascinating. It was like watching an animal catch its prey. He enticed them, making them laugh and feel welcome, then he would pounce, something as small as a sideways grin that could make anyone think “Jesus, this person is incredible, I have to know them.” It was never a conscious decision to love my brother, it was a formality. You had to, how couldn't you? Not liking Daniel was not liking chocolate or vacations or puppies, the idea itself was absurd. And let’s say you dared to tread that water, it wouldn’t be long before he worked his magic and brought you right back. And that was exactly it. It was magic. It was intoxicating, exhilarating.  You were drunk without ever realizing you were drinking, and before you knew it, you were hooked. You were always hooked.
He had the perfect group of friends. A group of six or seven people, a fairly equal amount of boys and girls, who did everything together. They all talked as equals, the girls just as good of friends with the boys as anyone else. They went to movies, went to town, when there was no one there, there was always one of the group to fall back on. Exactly what I’d always wanted.
I could have hated him, I could have hated what he had that I didn’t. I could have hated the effect he had on people, the effect I never did. I could have resented the person he was, his very being, every word he said, every joke he cracked, every line he spoke, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
The effect my brother had on me was far more severe. He didn’t only uplift me, he made me fly. I could do anything. I could say anything, I could be anything. His words were healing and rebuilding, giving every broken piece inside of me a chance to function again. He knew what it took to make me laugh and bring a light to every dark dusty part of myself. If he was a hammer, by god I was a nail.
With this profound presence however, came a startling truth. I would never be him. I would never live up to that standard, I would never be the tall pretty one who could change opinions and turn heads with the same fluency one would find in riding a bike or making a sandwich, it would never be that easy. Like all things in my life I would have to work for it. And one day, the day before the first day of my freshman year in highschool, I decided that was exactly what I was going to do.

My projected “popularity” for lack of a better word, was established due to many factors. One of which, of course, being Daniel’s sister. I found people noticed who I was, they looked at me a moment longer in the hall, they watched as I passed by. My last name had become a brand, and a new sense of identity. I wasn’t “Victoria” anymore, I was “Batista”, a younger, less funny, female version of my senior brother. I found myself having conversations with new people, new important people. I had conversations with junior girls, and more impressively, senior boys were suddenly saying hello and waving at me in the hallway. And after a while, I found myself waving back. I was holding conversations, I was making people laugh. Naturally, I was finding that all my experience watching my brother had payed off, and just a slight joke or a witty comment could win someone over.

When I became friends with the popular girls in school, I thought I had won the jackpot. My goal was to have friends, but these girls were more than I could have asked for. I was rolling with the people I wanted to be, it was perfect.
But of course, it wasn't. I tried to be like them, I liked all the right music, hated the right people and said all the right things, but something was very wrong. When I commented on something, saying my own personal opinion, I would get dirty looks and rolling eyes. When I told a story and my animations got a little too big, I got these looks, like “Okay, look what it’s doing now.” When I politely declined the invitations to parties I knew would have drinking  and partying, I got an ingenuine “Aw okay, maybe next time!” and eventually the invitations stopped coming completely. They would ask me how I was doing, just so I would ask them in return, so they could talk about themselves. They would talk about a girl, rip her apart, and then go skip off with them moments later as if they hadn’t just thrust a knife in their best friend’s back.
It was disgusting. I told myself that I would never be a hateful person, only an uplifting, loving person. But I found, as much as I denied it to myself, that I had become what I’d hated most. We tore girls apart, picking out their insecurities to make ours less prominent. I never used to curse, but with them, I said things that even surprised the filthiest of mouths. I was mean, and hateful, yet I condemned the very things I saw in myself. I hated others because I hated who I had become, and as much as I denied it, the truth was plain to see.
I didn’t belong with them. I was the one taking the pictures, I was never in them. I was never the first to be called to sleepover somewhere, I was never asked how I was doing, I was never asked what I thought. I was giving them so much more than any of them were giving back. And for what? To be treated like garbage because that was what I’d become. I didn’t belong there. Never once did they stay up with me late at night. Never once did they laugh at my jokes. Never once did they ever make it clear I was anything worth keeping around. I was a victim as much as anyone else, but of a self inflicted wound. I thought it was what I wanted, when really, I’d turned into the very monster I’d once admonished.

So there I was, lying face up on the ground in my backyard looking up into the stars. And on this particular night, in a small town in Upstate New York, the stars were remarkably visible. As a voice faded to a dull hum, I felt tears run down my cheeks. I had no reason to be upset, I should’ve been happy right where I was, but the tears came anyway. The darkness enveloped me, swallowing me whole, leaving me to ponder the necessity of my existence in this life. Yes, I was nothing. In the grand scheme of things, I was nothing but a drop in an endless ocean, as easily erased as I was created. This reality devoured me, it sank deep into the pits of my stomach, making knots that would not undo themselves. And these tears came down , heavy and thick, confirming the enormity of it all, and the simple nothing that I was.
I still cried. But now for not only the death of that meek, shy girl, but the birth of this monstrous one. How easily I was swayed to have what I’d always wanted, and how savagely it destroyed every bit of me. How very very worthless it all was.
And I remember, on this muggy, clear night in summer, on the grass staring up at the stars, tears streaming down my cheeks, I smiled. Because I was free. I would never be my brother, but I was never meant to be those girls. I may tell loud stories, but I would find someone who would appreciate them. I may tell awful jokes, but someone will think they're funny. And I may be friendly, and I may be funny, but I will never need to compromise my values to find who I am.
I build, I do not destroy.
I fly, I do not shoot down.
And I love. I do not hate.
I have nothing to owe.
And whoever I discover I truly am, as different and strange and unique as that person may be, will always be enough, for this vast expanding universe. I may have lost my beginning, but I will find my end.