Brooke a.
Photography by John Tropeano
If you’re reading this, make a wish on a star tonight.
When I was a little girl, my Dad would take me outside at night, make me pick out the very first star I could spot and taught me this rhyme: star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.
When I was younger the wishes would be simple — I wished that I could have a playdate on a week day or that my parents would take me to Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York City (I still wish for this sometimes).
As I grew older, my wishes started to change. I wished the boy I had a crush on would like me back or that I would get an A on my spelling test
Come my senior year of high school I only had one wish in mind: that my soccer team would win the league championship that season. I wished on a star every single night until three months later it came true. And I was hooked.
I was convinced that if I wished for the same thing each night it would eventually happen. So come my freshman year of college, I sat outside of my dorm room after the first week of classes and pooled together all the wishes I had for my four years at Villanova.
I wished that I would make dozens upon dozens of friends. I wished that I would do well in all of my classes. I wished that I would get my dream job one day (even though I didn’t, and still don’t know, what that dream job is). I wished that a cute boy would date me. Most importantly, I wished that Villanova would be my home away from home — that everything would fall perfectly into place. That night I culminated all of my wishes into one word: home.
For three straight years I have wished “home” on a star. Yet, somewhere along the way, what “home” meant and what the wish represented started to change.
I have come to realize that while I was making the same wish every single night, I had slowly but surely redefined what I was actually wishing for.
I no longer wished for dozens upon dozens of friends—I instead was wishing for lasting and meaningful friendships. I no longer was wishing to do well in my classes—instead I was wishing to build connections that would help me in my professional endeavors. I no longer was wishing for a cute boy to date me—I was wishing to love and be loved. Most importantly, I no longer wished for everything to fall perfectly into place at Villanova—I was wishing that I would continue to learn and grow—finding my place in a group of people and landscape that is ever changing.
After all those years of picking out a star each night, I have come to realize that there is just one thing that our wishes coming true are dependent on: ourselves.
The wishes I made freshman year are reflective of the person I was then, not the person I am now. Our hopes, our desires, our wishes—they are not intended to be finite. They are supposed to change. That’s because we change.
If you’re reading this, go make a wish on a star tonight. And then make a different one tomorrow night, or perhaps a new one next week. Embrace the fact that you are growing into everything you once wished you could become—because who you are becoming is so much more important than who you used to be.
Brooke A., Villanova University
Connect With Us
To follow IfYoureReadingThis at Villanova on Instagram, get in touch with our chapter, and learn about more resources available to Villanova students, visit our chapter’s homepage.
