starpower ━ [south park]

1 | the start

"spinning dreams with angel wings. torn blue jeans, a foolish grin. "

8:47 am, thursday, 2007.

"i wanna be an astronaut when i grow up."

ever since i was little, the idea of drifting through space enticed me thoroughly. i had always imagined it felt like falling, like the falling sensation you feel when falling asleep too quickly.

"wow, really kiddo? those are some big aspirations to have."

i was ten at the time, my dad & i were having a conversation about my future. seems like alot for a ten year old just entering the fifth grade, but life was flying past us like the wind regardless. i sat backseat with my older brother in my dad's old mini van, smushed between cardboard boxes & a mess of fast food wrappers from that mornings breakfast. we didn't have money to hire a moving service, so we packed our little lives into little boxes & placed them into a little van & drove hours to a little rural town outside the threshold of what i was accustomed to.

i was a city kid in a city family. i was born and raised in California. i grew up in hot temperatures & became accustomed to the way of city people because it was all i knew. though, through an unforeseen change in my dad's personal life, my brother & i were dragged out of the grounds of comfort & to the south of cold, rocky colorado.

mom died when i was six, on the day before my seventh birthday, to a drunk driver quite early in the day. i guess the term 'its five pm somewhere' really isn't just for laughs. the driver had ran a stop light & smashed into her driver side door head on, taking her almost instantly. we weren't with her, thankfully, or else i might've lost both parents that day.

four years later, my widowed dad found himself talking everyday & almost all the time to a single woman in colorado he met on a dating website; i can only imagine how lonely grieving could feel. from what i was told, she had lost her husband to tragedy as well, only for her it was terminal.

i remember crying when i was told.

i never imagined my father moving on from my mother. she was gone, but i couldn't have imagined him loving anyone else. when i pulled at his shirt & wiped my snot & tears into my sleeve, i remember he told me- "i love your mother, there will never be any replacing her. you won't understand this now, honey, but the grief settles & you learn to live with it. she stays in my heart, & i see her in you everyday. but, time goes on."

my dad always had a way with words. but for my older brother, he was a much larger challenge when it came to consolation. he was furious, he trashed his bedroom in a snotty, weeping fit of anger. it took hours for him to calm down, & when he did, i found him in the corner of his room with puffy red eyes balled into himself with his wet face in his hands.