They graced me with their light and stole away my heart and soul.  They kissed me, softly, and aroused in me this flame that razed conditioning, burning the splendor of it's hope into my dreams, and they said to me, "What limit...?"

Since the first moment of my childhood I could remember, I've enjoyed watching the sky.  Though I've disdained religion as an organization, I have always felt that just drowning in that awfully tantalizing light brought me that much closer to the face of God.

I knew what I wanted.  It was confirmed when my father sent me my first telescope and my heart nearly burst with what is still a very rare feeling for me; excitement.  The anticipation of the Universe dropping it's garments made of sky, baring itself to me, and allowing me to watch it as it danced, unashamed, through my still-forming imagination, was nothing short of unbearable.  I could not wait; I wanted to be a galaxy class peeping tom.

I wanted to be an astronomer, and it was only because that was the one thing that would allow me to feel that very same excitement that I felt once a year during Christmas.  I wanted to chart the stars, albeit with my feet safely on terra firma.  Distance was no barrier to my appreciation of the Universe and it's wonders.  Junior year physics, however, proved to be an all but impassable wall to my dream job.  "What limit?" indeed.

So it is, I never lived that dream, not in the capacity of an under-appreciated scientist
making very little and putting up with very much.  But some nights, when I am alone on a
dark highway racing toward home, I stop, get out of my car, and stare up into the face of God,
and I dream of starlight.