shooting stars

jan 8. 2026

i won’t lie. this title, and the reason i’m writing at all today, came from a comment i saw on tiktok. someone described the people she’d been infatuated with as “shooting stars.” and it lodged itself in my chest the same way those people always did. suddenly. quietly. with no warning and no promise of staying.

shooting stars are never meant to be permanent. they don’t linger. they don’t circle back. they appear just long enough to be seen, to be wished on, and then they disappear. and somehow, that briefness doesn’t make them less meaningful. it makes them unforgettable.

i’ve known people like that. people who entered my life fast and bright and changed something in me before i even realized what was happening. my first ex when i just had started high school who taught me what love was. we were together for a long time but broke up because were too young and naive. my second ex whos constantly stalking me on linkedin. this italian boy i fell head over heels for and took a gap year to explored europe and live out my movie with. another girl who was my roommate when i studied abroad. i think about all the nights we came home and told each other every detail of our days, or blasted “valerie” and sang along like nothing else existed. and of course, there are more. there always are.

but these people were never meant to stay, no matter how often i wished for them upon a star. they came into my life at very specific moments, lit something up, and then left before they could become anything else. before the magic could dull. before the version of me they knew disappeared.

i think if i tried to bring them back now, it would ruin it. it would turn something bright and fleeting into something heavy and forced. like trying to pin a shooting star to the sky and asking it to stay. it wouldn’t shine the same. it wouldn’t feel the same. it would just become another thing that couldn’t live up to what it once was.

sometimes i see their names pop up. a photo. a tag. proof that they’re still out there, living lives i’ll never fully know. i do feel something then. a small bloom of warmth in my chest and a quiet gladness that makes sense. we’re taught that the people who matter most are the ones who stay. the constants. the anchors. and that’s true. those people keep us grounded. but i think shooting stars matter too. the ones who pass through quickly, burn brightly, and leave us changed in ways we don’t fully understand until much later.