Stuck in Star Batter.

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” Anais Nin

I wrote this last year:

"I’m standing in a room I’ve stood in a million times before. More than a million; my whole life.  And it just became outer space--The way I imagine outer space. A pretend outer space--There is nothing around me, but everything is around me. It’s claustrophobic. Every speck of dust is like a star; another one, and another one.

I see everyone, every speck of dust, moving towards me like I’m the center of the dust galaxy. If I don’t hold my breath, my lungs will fill up and I will choke. Dust stars surround me; stars so concentrated, maybe I’m in the middle of a nuclear bulge. I’m one of the old stars, in the nuclear bulge, highly concentrated and tightly packed together.

Stars should feel free and magical. Stars should feel unEarthly and full of wishes. Yet, I’m standing in the middle of this room I’ve stood in a million times, and I can’t breathe, and I can’t move.  I am so trapped by the dust--the dust stars--and I don’t want to be one of them.

My throat is dry and thick inside. Sludge. It's formed a paste, I think as I stand there. The dust actually mixed with my spit and I’m going to choke on star batter."

"A galaxy is a large gravitational aggregation of stars, dust, gas, and an unknown component termed dark matter. The Milky Way Galaxy is only one of billions of galaxies in the known universe.  At the center of the most galaxies is a high concentration of older stars. This portion of a galaxy is called the nuclear bulge. Beyond the nuclear bulge lies a large disc containing young, hot stars, called the disk of the galaxy."

A friend of mine once told me that "no one is ever stuck."  He said that, even if we couldn't see the forward movement happening, microscopic cells in our body were regenerating and that some part of us was always growing and changing.  Growth means we aren't stuck.  No one is ever stuck.

I guess I felt stuck a year ago when I wrote that. I'm not sure If I even tried to get unstuck. Maybe I was never stuck at all? Maybe time gets stuck and we are in the middle of it, watching all the dust settle around us because it can't just stay suspended. Dust can't stay suspended like people or time... It keeps accumulating.