I feel like every child, at some point in their youth, is scared of something almost completely irrational. This might be a dull but ever-present anxiety about some sort of natural disaster (or something of the like) that is easy to ignore if you don’t think about it, but once one remembers it, it’s all they can think about. Something like sinkholes or a flash flood. I remember that my sister was always petrified at the thought of being caught in a hurricane or typhoon, despite us only knowing landlocked Kansas as our home and never vacationing anywhere near a coastline. For others, this fear might look like something more realistic, but far away, like a personal loss or a sort of anticipatory grief. However, for me, one of the only things I was scared of as child was the thought of the Milky Way’s crash course trajectory of colliding with Andromeda, the nearest galaxy to our spiral home.
This probably sounds so incredibly silly, but I’m being genuine about this. I think I watched some PBS documentary that discussed this idea and ever since then I was hooked. At the time, it was a consensus among the astronomical community that in about 5 billion years, our galaxy, the Milky Way, would collide with the nearest neighboring galaxy, Andromeda. Since then, the evidence behind this claim has been reviewed and this event’s occurrence is now believed to be only about a 50% chance. Still, at the time of my young mind’s initial introduction to this bombshell, it was considered to be an inevitable event in our cosmological timeline, and it was terrifying.
I’ve since grown out of this fear, naturally, and I’ve always reasoned that I was scared of it simply because it was so much larger than me. The thought of the dust of my fleeting, insignificant life being flung into space was more than I could handle. The fear loomed over me like a vulture’s spread wings shrouding its carrion, sneering, laughing down on what is already dead and gone. Maybe I’m just being dramatic, because there was really nothing else for me to worry about at age eight. Everything was so simple that I felt like the closest threat to my well-being was another galaxy plummeting toward us, as we are rushing towards it in tandem. A dance of stars and vacuum-dark antimatter. In any case, it’s safe to say that I outgrew this fear as the trials and tribulations of growing up became priorities.
The thought of humanity’s inevitable collision with the alien realm had slipped my mind for many years, until I came across an animated rendering of it earlier today on Instagram. I typically don’t remember what I see while mindlessly scrolling through reels, but there’s some things that stick out to me every once in a while. Needless to say, I didn’t just remember this video since I first saw it this morning–I’ve been obsessed with it. The clip is short. It portrays the two galaxies in their own regular motion, and then quickly, quietly, the arms of the Milky Way sprawl out into a confused jumble of solar systems and all the convoluted mess that currently composes our chaotically organized galaxy. Andromeda is similarly affected, with her twists and turns flying every which way into the vast darkness that surrounds the scene. In a few words, the video is stunning, shocking, and altogether incredibly magnificent.
When I started college last August, I knew that I was going to meet so many new people, try a multitude of new activities, find fresh and welcoming third places, and be constantly challenged and rewarded by the whole experience. Everyone around me knew this, as we had been told by all those older than us that this would occur. However, no one told us the manner in which these events would occur. No one told me that on the first day of classes I would have to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying in my chemistry lecture. No one informed me that moving away from home would be so difficult, even when home is thirty minutes away. No one thought to tell me just how quickly hair will accumulate on the tile floor of my dorm and would need much more frequent cleaning than on carpet. But most importantly, no one told me that, like the Milky Way and Andromeda, I would collide so intensely and fervently with so many new people. No one briefed me on the certainty that eventually, suddenly, I would spin loose, winding around in chaotic harmony with anyone I could find, and that they would be receptive and dance with me.
I have yet to make a lot of friends in college. I feel like that has to be said as a kind of disclaimer, because I wouldn’t call myself a social person, and I spent little time last semester in active effort to get to know those around me. I regret this naive disinterest, but college presented more demanding adjustments than I initially thought. However, I have learned that friendship–passionate, pure, and cohesive–will strike with unprecedence. Do you think the Milky Way saw Andromeda in her path? Was she packing up her things after class and knew that someone was waiting to talk to her when she got out of her seat? Did she know that she would feel a nervousness unlike any other feeling at the thought of how badly she wanted to be Andromeda’s friend? Did she know that this collision would change the composition of her soul, would change the way she moved and spoke, would rewrite her idea of desire altogether? Probably not, since seconds before their collision, our Milky Way and Andromeda will still be hundreds of miles apart, just like I was in a completely different place the second before I met you compared to the second after we spoke.
I feel that there is a desire within me to get to know everyone, to be friends with everyone, to love everyone, and to embrace everyone, mirroring the (probably) inevitable cosmic collision that our galaxy will one day know. Do you feel the same way?
I truly do believe that becoming friends with someone changes everything. Friends influence one’s character so thoroughly, I think, that the neural connections in one’s mind must change and legitimately be rewired once two souls become close. I believe that friendship is an ongoing process; it’s not static or immobile, it changes with every conversation, every laugh, every expression. I’m not joking when I say I think some of my friendships have started with someone else and I making eye contact and sharing a reaction to something we’re both experiencing. It’s moments as tender and seemingly insignificant as these that force me to remember that we are all quite literally a word away from each other. That distance between people is so negligible that it can be broken by a smile. We’re blessed to be surrounded by such fragile barriers. The only step we need to take is ripping the thin film that covers our surface.
After seeing the short video of Andromeda and Milky Way’s collision, and interpreting it in such a way as just explained, I once again have mixed feelings about the event as a whole. On one hand, whatever matter remains on Earth will most likely freeze or burn up depending on our fate, a world dim and desolate with no star to orbit. On the other hand, I cannot shake the thought that there will be no such desolation as long as the fire of passion for one another remains. As long as the memories we have all shared are somehow maintained in the cosmic soup. As long as I am, in some way, myself, there will always be you, and vice versa. As long as there are remains of one human, maybe solidified into fossil fuel or vaporized into the air, there will be all of us. Friendship, and interconnectivity, binds us so much closer and tighter than we could ever fathom. Even writing this, I feel that there is something I’m still missing. Like there’s a piece to all of this that is extremely vital and urgent, but I can’t quite put my finger on it, because I simply don’t know it yet. In admitting this, I also must admit that I believe that whatever this missing piece may be is already definitely known by someone else, and I cannot wait to meet them, talk to them, embrace the closeness that is already there (and has always been there), and then I will know what to complete this with. I’ll let you know when these events occur.
Maybe I’m all wrong about this. Maybe the Milky Way and Andromeda will never collide and know the closeness that has quite literally been written in their stars since their creation. Maybe you don’t feel the interconnectivity with humanity that I feel. Maybe you haven’t felt the passion I’ve been describing, or haven’t known the spontaneity of talking to someone new just for the fun of it. Maybe we will simply be meaningless dirt and muck billions of years from now, and nothing that tells anyone of us will remain.
But maybe, our names that we wrote together will still be engraved somewhere.
Maybe the letters I wrote to you on your birthday will find their way back to me, and I’ll laugh at how silly I write.
Maybe everything around us will still whisper that I look like you, like everyone used to say when we were little.
Maybe I’ll still tell you all of my dreams and fears.
Maybe I will always exist in some way, and you will be what flickers in my memory eon after eon.
Maybe, just maybe, when we go spiraling into the vast unknown in five billion years, what remains of me will touch, for a second, what remains of you, and I will hear your voice say “Hello” for the first time again.
