Counting the Stars

Chapter 1 - The Brightest Stars

Reach for the stars. That was what my parents used to tell me when I was young. Reach for the stars and someday you will be able to hold them as your own. Maybe you could even count them, if you were patient enough. For many years of my youth, I tried to wrap my head around the phrase, approaching it from every different angle to piece apart the meaning as if having that knowledge would grant me the key to happiness and success.

Until I was old enough to know better, I was led along by the assumption that the expression was literal, which often sparked a long line of questions in my curious little mind. For days, I entertained the idea in my daydreams of reaching out and grabbing the dots of light above me in my tiny paws and wondered how such a thing was possible. Sometimes I even lied beneath the night sky just to see how close I could get, which never ended up being very far. How could I possibly manage to touch the stars when I was constantly being pulled back down again?

Why the words stuck with me for so long, even so far into my teenage years was beyond me, though I always had such a tight grip on it and refused to let it go for a second. In terms of my imagination, the sky was the limit. Time left the memories to the depths of my subconscious, but the stories always cycled back around in my family with a proud and nostalgic sparkle in the eyes of the storyteller.

I had been unstoppable. I had the entire universe in my sights and I would always be prepared for any adventure that was waiting for me. My mother and father had told me on a number of occasions that I was one of the hardest working animals they had ever known, even as I climbed into the double-digits of my age. My eyes were pried open with wonder almost every moment of every day with fantasies of making changes to the world, though some of them I eventually found to be rather unrealistic. I was going to make a difference, but there was not a chance that I was going to do it alone.

Moving through my early puppyhood, I could recall being told a few times that while I was so eager to really be something, to find myself and my potential, I carried with me a very similar ambition as my twin brother, Digby. Until Digby found his first professional job at the age of seventeen, we were absolutely inseparable. We had plans to advance into the future side by side and make names for ourselves for as long as I could remember. At times, I was guilty of babbling on and on to him about my extravagant life goals, but he always listened with an open mind and a kind smile. He would never think to judge me, this much I knew for sure.

Unfortunately, though expectedly, the relationship we had was not always the smoothest. We argued and fought about the silly things from time to time as any siblings would, falling in and out of our routine of cooperation. It was like a pattern, frequently drifting between different states of mind, but I knew we would always come back eventually. We carried the special type of friendship that was sure to last a lifetime and I could hardly wait for the future we would create. Given the opportunity, we would have ruled the world.

That was how it seemed until our first few teenage years rolled around. Around the age of fourteen, our friendship began to fall into an evident shift. An effort continued to be present for a sturdy friendship, yet our objectives slowly and unspokenly collapsed out of alignment. I had begun to ache to reach out and grab hold of the successful future I had imagined since childhood, but Digby had begun to falter. He gradually ceased to confide in me with plans for the future we had agreed on years before. For reasons I couldn't begin to understand, he wished to settle into a less significant life and work smaller instead of striving for something greater. Why would anyone wish to go unnoticed while a world of possibilities lay within their reach?

I wasn't too enthusiastic about the idea of leaving Digby behind in the plans we had formed together, but life went on as usual. When he decided that he wanted to stay put, I finally took my first step forward without him. I had had a few minor, unofficial opportunities to work scattered throughout my life before then, but by my fifteenth birthday, I was already constantly begging my parents to let me find a job. Since I was still so young at the time, my efforts were not rewarded until I was seventeen, when Digby received an offer for a job that would forever make my family proud.

It had been so easy for him. So easy, in fact, that I often wondered if he had just taken the simple way out. Nonetheless, my family was thrilled to hear that he had been invited directly to begin working at a place called the Happy Home Designer and Academy. I knew very little about it at the time except that it was a highly professional business and that it was run by a friendly otter named Lottie, who was the one to send out the invitation. Lottie had been a friend of mine and Digby's further back than I could remember, even though we could only visit once every few months because of distance. Two years older than both me and Digby, she had been working the business for years, though which year I wasn't quite sure. Once word had reached her that Digby and I had not found work, she offered us jobs to take and though I was grateful, I forced myself to decline. Digby, however, eager to begin a career, had accepted at once.

And just like that, my brother that had agreed to always stay by my side was going off in his own direction in life. The time left between us had shrunk dramatically once he took up a job; he left early in the mornings, sometimes before I could wake up to tell him goodbye, returned late in the evenings, and left a few hours at most to pretend with me that everything was as it used to be, if he wasn't too tired even for that. After he started working, we weren't quite the same. It was as if he had matured into an adult overnight and had other things to worry about and higher priorities than his twin sister who couldn't find work for herself. Now, I was the one falling behind while he advanced into the future.

Then, it was my turn. If I wanted to get somewhere in life, this was the time to start. My first chance to work had already passed me by, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from finding other opportunities to begin a career. It was early in my seventeenth year, I had finally received the approval to leave home and find work for myself, and I was prepared to set off on a journey to find out who I was meant to become.

I left my home without a second glance, abandoning everything I had ever known with nothing but a backpack, a goal, and the stars above me. As I went out into the world with high hopes and a few butterflies in my stomach, there was still one question that wouldn't leave my mind.

Can I really do this?