Time Gets Away

When I read the email response that had just arrived it didn't seem any action beyond vacating the office was appropriate.  I parked Loki outside my favourite building and still looked up to marvel at its size after I walked in.  I didn't know how long it had been since I'd absorbed the VAB's evening quiet, but I was surprised when he said I hadn't been there all year.  It made me feel that much worse about learning he'd be one of the many released from the space program in October.  He had always planned to retire with the Shuttle, but 2010 seemed ages away when he told me so.  Now the year was right, the end of the program was wrong, and the option to finish together had been taken from him.

As I sat in what was once my regular evening chair I surveyed my artwork on the office door.  It was amazing the way a few happy pieces of tape had evolved to a hodgepodge of objects and characters.  I thought about that first night I wandered into the VAB alone, meeting this stranger on a third story catwalk while they prepared Atlantis for lift in the transfer aisle below.  That visit began my time of doing an unofficial second shift - one which allowed me to watch and learn more of what processing a space vehicle really meant.  And even if there wasn't anything else going on, I'd still wander over to hang out and "chit-chat" until the shift change.

The start of my Masters degree changed that routine.  I'd still go over, but it happened less and less.  Classes and the need for a more realistic schedule to keep up with them weren't conducive to wandering or having friends.  Frequent travel didn't help either, and by the time classes were done I was so out of whack from my random "promotion" that I could barely make it through my own work day intact, let alone an extended one that concluded shortly before midnight.

Yes, I knew where the years had gone, but I hated them for vanishing as they had.  The colors on that door took me back to more joyful, optimistic days.  I loved where I was, I loved what I could discover there, I loved the people I spent my days with.  Those things made me forget about the other areas of my life that were lacking.  They kept me motivated.  They kept me excited.  They kept me inspired.

But the girl sitting in that chair wasn't quite the same as she had been the first time.  I'd known it for a while, yet in that moment the thought carried additional clarity.  And I hated what I had allowed to happen to her.  That innocent part of me I had always so adored was now looking back at me with big watery eyes attempting to hide the hurt of my betrayal.  I could do nothing for her.  Real life doesn't come with a "back" button.

The next day would find me back in my permanent office talking with the mentor I was assigned when my employment at the space center began.  We reminisced a little, I told the story of the crazy IDP framed on my wall, and I found that for the first time in ages a group of more than 2-3 of us were talking and laughing together.  I would later be told by my current mentor it was the happiest he'd seen any part of the group in six months.  It, too, was a sad thing to learn.  I missed the days when we were always laughing and playing with each other; the days when nobody feared something said in jest was a veiled shot; the days when we actually talked.  I missed a time when I believed I might actually be a positive thing in the lives of the people around me, but I just couldn't be that anymore. Not there, not for them.

Moments of perspective such as these here are always difficult.  It's tough to see the change, especially in a negative direction.  But they also remind me of how fortunate I am to have so many things behind me to treasure.  The reality is that I have been truly blessed throughout my life and the good does continue to overtake the bad.  It's how I know all we've been going through will pass and one day we'll be able to sit in a room together laughing about the good times we had.  It's the gulf between those two states that's the challenge.  In truth, it is the present that hurts far more than anything done in the past.  It's what I miss, how far away it is, and how scared I am that any hope I can muster for the future will be proven false that cut to the very heart of me.

I can't undo bad group dynamics, but maybe there's something worthwhile I can do to let a friend know he hasn't been and won't be forgotten.  Sadly my time to do so is shorter than I believed.  I still haven't figured out how to say goodbye.  I don't know how I want to send him off or the best way to use the remaining five weeks.  I don't know how much I even have in me to give at this point.  

But maybe I don't really have to do all that much.  Maybe I can just sit and the tree will be happy.