The van had been yellow once.
Now, it was the color of faded summers — the kind that slip quietly into memory without asking permission. Its paint carried the fingerprints of years: dust from forgotten roads, salt from coastal winds, and the faint scent of rain that had seeped into its bones.
I sat on the roof, knees pulled close, the metal still warm from the day’s sun. Around me, the field swayed in slow motion, tall grass whispering secrets to the wind. Above, the night unfolded — a black canvas stitched with silver, the Milky Way spilling across it like a wound of light.
Loneliness is a strange thing.
It doesn’t always feel like emptiness. Sometimes it feels like too much — too much sky, too many stars, too much silence pressing against your ribs. You start to wonder if the universe is trying to tell you something, or if it’s just reminding you how small you are.
I had driven here without a map, chasing a horizon I couldn’t name. The van’s engine had hummed like an old friend, steady and imperfect, carrying me away from the noise of people who didn’t really see me. Out here, there was no one to perform for. No one to measure my worth in likes, deadlines, or the weight of my productivity.
Just me.
And the stars.
And the quiet truth that maybe loneliness wasn’t an enemy — maybe it was a mirror.
I thought about the people I’d lost, the conversations I’d never had, the versions of myself I’d abandoned along the way. They were all here with me, in the stillness. Not haunting me, but sitting beside me in the grass, looking up too.
The Milky Way arched overhead, ancient and indifferent. And yet, in that indifference, I felt something like comfort. The stars didn’t care who I was, but they also didn’t care that I was alone. They simply existed — brilliant, unashamed, and infinite.
Maybe that was the lesson.
To exist without apology.
To glow, even when no one is watching.
When I finally climbed down from the roof, the van’s headlights cut a path through the dark. The road ahead was empty, but it didn’t feel lonely anymore. It felt wide. Open. Waiting.
And for the first time in a long time, so was I.