Astronauts

Space is everything... Space is nothing. What does it mean to me....

Was that star winking at me or dying…? Was it showing signs of joy at its demise? Maybe my eyes have deceived me. 

It wouldn’t be the first time.

I stare at the night sky, wondering what it’s like outside this planet. What mysteries does the universe hold? There has to be other species out there right? They say space is never ending… Surely we can’t be here alone.

Maybe what they say isn’t even real. They say they’ve sent men out there, and they came back in one piece. I’ll take their word for it. I mean, that’s all I can really do… Take their words for it. Take everyone’s words but my own. 

I can’t trust my own.

I don’t know if I even have my own. Every time I try to form my own words, my own thoughts, they end up wrong. They say I’m too young, I’m too inexperienced, I’m too ignorant of the real world for my opinion to be valid. Well… whatever they say.

I stopped searching for my own words. I couldn’t stomach the rejection any longer. Now I just take their word for it. Its less painful that way. It hurts to never be right, to desperately search for validation that never arrives.

Everyone else here is much smarter than me. So many answers, so many questions… So many different answers to the same question… Is that what defines intelligence? Having your own answer, regardless of everyone else’s? Are we the only intelligent life in this universe?

“Intelligent” being up for debate.

I wish I could escape from here. Enter a different space. Find a species that matches my lack of intelligence. Maybe Jeff Bezos will adopt me and show me how to embrace the all encompassing darkness he loves to explore. I’d do anything to have options. To have an escape route. My only escape is to the moon, to the stars, to somewhere outside myself. One day could I finall…….

*Crash*

*Scream*

*Yell*

I snap back to reality. Are they throwing things? Don’t they know I have school tomorrow? Of course they know. Of course they don’t care. There’s more important things to discuss… I’m never the most important thing to discuss.

I mean, I don’t really care about school either… I just know I have to go. I don’t like school, but I have no say in the matter.

The other students don’t look like me, the teachers don’t look like me, its not February, so we won’t be learning about anyone who looks like me. I wonder if there are astronauts who look like me?

How can I share the same classroom, yet feel so far away from everyone else inside of it? Yet… I also feel too close, as if they’re watching my every move, judging my every word. Keen observers of a species they’ve never before witnessed in the wild. That’s how I feel they see me… Some animal that’s been dropped into their insulated world of homogeneity.

I broke up the space they spent their whole lives comfortable and questionless in, now I have to bear the burden of my unwanted entry. Learn what’s funny to them, laugh at their jokes, even if they mention how big my lips are, how much welfare I get, how they know I want the last piece of watermelon… Man school is just so….

*Door slams*

*Glass breaks*

*More screaming*

This has to be one of the worst fights in awhile. I turn away from my small window and look around my room for a place to hide. To hide from these emotions, to separate from these feelings. But there is nowhere to go.

I try under my pillow, but there’s not enough room. I turn my music up and try to drown out the storm that rages beyond my bedroom door. I don’t care if my ears bleed, as long as I can put space between me and this tsunami.

Where does the eye of the storm exist? Seems to me, this space cannot be real. A place where you can witness waves crashing, lightning streaking, sheets of rain pounding the asphalt mercilessly, without getting wet. Without being paralyzed by the fear of impending doom.

How can you avoid what nature brings to your doorstep? I’m so small in the face of circumstance, so insignificant, so meaningless. What can I do?

I wish I was strong enough to put a stop to this. I wish my opinion mattered to them. I wish my pain mattered to them. But I don’t want to get caught in the crosshairs of their anger. It surely will hit its target. It always hits the target.

My fragile confidence. My brittle sense of self. I don’t know if I can handle that today. So I return to the window, return to contemplating the great unknown. They don’t need my childish opinions of compromise. They need their space. And I need mine. So I’ll take this piece I can see through this window.

---

Just how far is forever? Just how much is infinite? Looking at the sun peeking in and out of clouds, it seems to be forever away. It might as well be forever away. The light exists outside the realm of possibilities. An infinite amount of energy illuminating everything it touches.

I wish I could capture the light of the sun, somehow bottle it and take a satisfying swig. Why must we humans capture things? Eliminate its space, so we can own it. So we can have everything. That’s what everyone seems to think we deserve. Everything.

I don't know though. Most of us can’t handle something. How dare we ask for everything? Most of us have something, but say we have nothing.

I promise I’m not like them, I don’t want to own the sun. I just want to feel. Feel like I have a purpose. Feel like I’m so bright, so powerful, other people can feed off my productions. Imagine taking up the space around everyone, and everyone enjoys it. They look forward to it. When you’re not in their space, they complain. They say how dreary things look without you. They can’t wait for you to reenter their atmosphere. For you to be at the doorstep of their existence. What a feeling that must be. Someone smiling at you on their doorstep… I wonder if one da…

“HELLOOOOOO!”

*Hands clap*

“Since you can never pay attention in class. How about you go pay attention to the principal’s office? All you do here is take up space.”

I make my way to the counselor’s office, but stop in the bathroom on the way. My teacher’s words reverberate in my head. She said I take up space.

How can I do that? I am space itself. An empty vessel waiting to be filled. I’m not sure I exist. I see myself and and think about how they tell me I exist. I take their word for it. But the experience eludes me.

Inside me is a vast nothingness, a place without oxygen available. When I try to let myself be full, I can’t breathe. It’s too much. An infinite amount of emotions I cannot deal with. An expanse that can’t be traveled by modern man. No one’s been able to develop the technology for it. I’d rather be empty. I’d rather take your word for it. That I take up space. That I exist.

“Why are you making trouble for your teachers? How come you can’t just fall in line like the rest of your classmates? Like a normal student?”

Normal… what is normal? How come I can’t achieve it?

You’re right here, sharing this room with me, asking me questions, but the space between us can’t be traveled. The pressure is too great, the distance too far. If I let myself outside this empty vessel, if even for a moment, I’ll be crushed.

Crushed by the disappointment, crushed by the weight of expectations, demolished by the deceit of hope. The hope that I’ll be understood. The hope that I’ll be acknowledged. That I’m real. I can’t be real. Otherwise, how come no one makes space for me?

“Come on! Speak up! Use your words!”

What are words but space eaters? The real space takers? Sweet nothings we pump into the atmosphere to approximate communication. To act as a pitiful attempt at connection.

How can we use words to describe the awesome emptiness of our lives? The awe inspiring disconnect between us that can’t be traversed. Certainly not with words. But somehow we always make space for words, never for feelings.

“You know what, go see your counselor, I don’t have time for this”

---

“Hello! I’ve heard you’ve been spacing out in class. Can you tell me why?”

Why? What do you mean why? As if I could reduce myself to a mere answer, using those misrepresentations of truth that we call words. How could you understand the space I’m in?

I space out because my life is weightless, nothing to hold me down. My life is zero gravity, nothing to ground me. I’m always in space, the space between where I’m at and where I want to be. Between who I am and who I want to be.

I space out because I have no space. I am one with my emotions, my permanent pain, my fleeting pleasures. You can’t see without space, and my emotions block my vision.

They are impermeable, a permanent screen between me and the rest of you. Between me and normalcy. I try to run to other places but there is no escape. They cling to me tightly, wrapping my eyes in their unending shroud. I intimately experience the highs and lows. There is no room for perspective, only for enmeshment. With my so called parents, my so called friends, my so called family.

There is infinite space between us. A chasm so vast that it has room for all of our misplaced passions that keep us from truly seeing each other. So much space between us, we are only a dot on the horizon. Almost nonexistent.

It’s so lonely in this space… This nothingness that extends all around me.

I turn to the window in her room, look to the outside world, praying I could absorb some of the sun’s confidence. That this shroud could be penetrated by the light, showing her the answers she desired. That the light pierced through this thick wall of emotions that kept even me from entering. But clouds had gathered and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Rain had entered the places previously filled by the light.

“Hey… you know this is a safe space?”

I turn away from the window, the clouds of my emotions swirling heavily. Now, the light inside my eyes was also being touched by water. Rain drops descended from somewhere above my understanding. As water runs down my cheeks, it’s now my turn to ask the questions.

“How… How can you be sure those exist?”