Gasping for air, I woke up. There was a blanket in my hands — grasped tightly like a shield to protect me from the cold air. I stretched my legs and my arms, trying to shake away the grogginess from my sleep. I sat up anxiously. I checked my calendar. My phone read “No events planned.” It was just a regular Saturday morning. When I was a child, I often played in my backyard. I took many pictures of birds and butterflies and bees that had come to visit, zooming in to see the spectacular design of such creations. I looked for the tops of the trees that seemed to never stop growing. I smelled the beautiful roses my mother had planted, along with the daisies that neighbored them. Often, I laminated the leaves and the petals and anything that caught my eye. Laminating the beauty around me was my safe zone. I had found a way to keep something to myself, a permanent design to the things I cherished. My favorite was a Himalayan Blue Poppy that sprouted out of nowhere in my backyard. It was unique to me, full of idiosyncrasies unlike the others. The whistling wind brushed through my hair as I flew my kite in the spring breeze. The flourishing flames warmed me as I sat by the fire on summer nights. The gritty ground sifted in my hands as I tried to search for earthworms and roly-polies in the chilly autumn. And the restless rain poured down on me as I danced in the showers of winter. I often gazed at the beautiful sky, marveling in awe of its different colors: a vast light blue to splashes of purple, red, orange, and yellow to a black and blue sky, splattered with dots of white — the universe calling to be searched and understood. I was young, full of curiosity and admiration for this complex world around me. I wanted to learn everything there was to learn about the galaxy I lived in and the galaxies beyond our grasp. That same world, however, also destroyed my love for it. Soon enough, that boy disappeared. It was September of 2015. My priority immediately shifted from my passions, my education towards my friends and their validation. I got stuck in a never-ending cycle of disappointment, hardships, and temporary happiness. I had stopped doing my homework. Throughout high school, I spent my life trying to please friends that never reciprocated the effort I put in. Yet, I stayed, having found purpose in pleasing those around me. I served them. I fulfilled their every need only to be tossed aside when a better opportunity arises, and when they were done with me, I moved on to the next group of friends that went on to use me. I waited at their beck-and-call if they needed anything. I did this for four years. Walking down the ramp with my diploma, I wondered why I put myself through such hardship. I wasn't proud of anything I did in high school. I had nothing to be proud of. I didn't earn any achievements. I did nothing to receive anything, but in that, I lost everything. It's Saturday morning. I looked around the house to find something to do. I stood up, searching my house to find anything to occupy me. It had been two months since we graduated and I walked around, trying to look for a purpose. I felt like an empty vessel — a spirit, dead inside a physical embodiment of lost passion. “Tristan!” My mother called me to the living room. I looked out at the sea of crafts I made when I was a child. Paper plates wrapped in aluminum foil to simulate UFO's were displayed along with different colored kites in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I walked through the living room lost in the huge mess that my mother had created. “Mom, why did you take everything out? My friends might come over anytime. This is embarrassing.” “I'm cleaning the garage! I was just wondering if you wanted to keep anything.” “Just throw them out. They're just pieces of garbage anyway.” My mother mumbled to herself, exclaiming what a waste it was. I helped her bag things up from the tinfoil UFO's to the kites that I flew one spring. Paper planes and printed photos of birds and bees and butterflies were discarded one by one into the black trash bag that sucked in my childhood. As I threw each picture into the bag, my heart felt heavier and heavier, but I still managed to throw it all out. Then a particular box that my mother had in her hands caught my eye. “Mom, can I see that box real quick?” In front of me was a large box, gray in appearance yet tinted with a sky blue hue underneath the dust that had covered it. Inside it were the laminations I had from childhood. They filled the box, labeled in their species and the date I had found them. Nostalgic, I rummaged through the box trying to find a specific one. In what was over a span of five minutes, I searched for a specific lamination that felt like five decades. One after the other, I discarded the leaves and the petals that covered my treasure. Then I saw it. I found the lamination of the Himalayan Blue Poppy that I had been searching for all this time.