Welcome to day 19 of my experiment: Going through the Valley of Despair.

Today my father and I went to Wellington. We walked along Cuba Street, rode the cable car, and strolled through the botanical gardens. Everything beautiful, everything expected.

The unexpected came at the end.

With no plans, we stepped into the planetarium just in time for the last forty-five-minute session. The film began with Māori legends and then moved through the sky and the Universe. The concave ceiling screen and enveloping sound turned it into a fully immersive experience.

Learning to recognize zodiac constellations and to use stars to orient ourselves in the Southern Hemisphere awakened a curiosity in me about astrology — about the sky that marks us from the moment we are born.

But when the video expanded the scale and placed our galaxy alongside the Universe, with other galaxies and distances measured in light, the ground fell away beneath me. I began to cry.

The questions came too fast. There was no time to focus on a single one – it was as if they all raced through my mind at the speed of light. How does all of this exist? Why? For what purpose? It laid bare the limits of my understanding.

For a moment, I even doubted it. Is all of this really true? Is the Universe truly infinite? Or is it just another story? I could feel the weight of that information.

In the end, being small in the face of all of that freed me from my worries. At the same time, it made clear how short the time we have on Earth really is.

I went in with no expectations at all and came out freed from my worries – almost nothing truly matters. What matters is keeping my sense of wonder for the Universe alive within me.

How good it was to be reminded of this today.

With gratitude,