And Four to Five Years Slipped Away...

Somewhere over the 528 causeway I realized my college graduation occurred exactly four years ago today. It continues to amaze me how one minute that life feels like an eternity away and the next it feels like I could step back into it tomorrow. Time runs off on me far too easily.

As I talked with one of my coworkers the other day I observed that part of the reason years seem to go faster could be because our lives become more fragmented as we age. As young schoolchildren we know when school starts and ends and when our vacations will occur. Those are the only milestones we know and care about, perhaps with Christmas and a birthday thrown in. As we get a bit older we change classes after a set period of time, breaking up the day into tinier pieces. Years later we measure by half years and sports seasons. Next we get to college semesters. Then, in the working world, we're split between meetings and deadlines and travel. Those who end up with families now have the schedules of spouses and children to consider and their milestones to take on.

Life doesn't move any faster, we just make ourselves too busy to notice the simpler pieces of it.

I make that statement, yet it seems completely contrary to the decisions I am slowly making for myself. One year from now I will have (hopefully) completed my second degree and will get my life back. In a move completely out of character, I have begun to ask, "What next?" while there still remains much ground to cover before I even reach an opportunity for that "next". Every thought and desire I have had brings with it more movement and change. None of it will be easy.

But I am starting to realize what I want and am slowly talking to people about how to get there. These acts are a new thing for me, the wanting and the sharing. I suppose I have realized I simply cannot go this one alone. I need other people to help.

Four years ago I really had no idea where I would be right now. I never imagined I had anything to offer a place like NASA - or anywhere else, for that matter. Time is slowly showing me that I was short-sighted. The growth is slow, but at least I am getting there.

Captured At:2359

Stillness in Unexpected Places

The PACAS system knows much better than I do when the last time is that I ventured over to the VAB. Last night, with rollout only a handful of hours away, I was motivated to get a peek at Discovery before the 3.4 mile crawl to pad 39-A. Once inside the elevator I instinctively pressed the button for C platform and began my ascent to the top of the stack. I realized quickly it was a mistake; the best shots would require a stop that would let me out the other side of the elevator doors.

At C platform I was asked to hold the elevator by a trio ducking back under the yellow controlled area tape. I hit the button for the next platform at their request, and when the elevator stopped they told me to come along. I was now part of the final pre-rollout safety walkdown.

When that effort was complete and the required paperwork had been signed off on, the man I presumed to be in charge offered to take me back up to where I should have been shooting pictures from the first time. His offer to show me around also extended to a completely unexpected location: the roof.

My only other walk upon KSC's tallest building came about a month after I began at NASA. We went up in the morning, somewhere around 9 or 10am, and the sun rays seemed suffocating. The roof surface was bubbled and warnings were often administered to watch where we stepped. Fear of puncturing one of those bumps and falling made the visit a bit tense.

Since then the entire roof has been redone. The area is so large that until you get closer to the edge it is all too easy to forget that your "floor" is actually 525 feet off the ground. The sun was in its final stages of descent. The ambient temperature possessed no quality worth mentioning and everything had a magical sense of quiet.

Keeping up conversation and paying attention to my guide was a struggle. I had walked right into the kind of moment I lose myself in and never want to leave. Everything was at peace as the final sliver of pink sun disappeared. Only after he was gone did I realize I had held my breath during those final moments as if somehow an exhale would destroy everything.

Back on the ground floor high bay 3 was bustling with activity I would not be a part of. I enjoy visiting the shuttle world, but my job is elsewhere. It is probably just as well. I could not have gone back to work after the serenity I had been given. All I could be was thankful.

Captured At:1251

During the relaxation we do at the end of yoga I often slip far enough away that I lose my extremities. When we are told to start waking up the body by wiggling fingers and toes I often struggle to find them. I can vaguely sense that they exist and I know where they should be, but it takes effort to actually make the movement occur.

My mind felt very similar to that for most of today. The trigger had gone off somewhat, but not completely. It left my thoughts reaching out for something that simply wasn't there.

After dinner I decided I needed a walk. I had spent a relaxing afternoon hanging out by the pool and harassing the quartet of dogs under my sister's care, but I just felt like I needed to be moving. The evening weather boasted every attribute that makes Florida desirable, yet this atmosphere only prompted further struggle as I walked. My mind was on pause and I couldn't wake it. The highs and lows it generally experiences often drive me close to crazy, but nothing disturbs me more than when it feels absolutely nowhere.

Somewhere in the middle of the walk I was tempted to stop. I imagined tipping my hand toward the sky, saying "Thanks, it's been fun", and exiting stage right. I suppose the idea of just stepping off of the life stage would be cause for concern to some, but it wasn't a depressed musing. In that moment I had been overcome with a sense of "That's nice. Can I go home now?"

I couldn't really explain where it had come from. I wondered where it is I would make my departure if an exit were possible. It's not like I live on the Truman Show; there's no door somewhere nearby that I can simply walk out of to find the next world or, as happens in video games, move to the next level. I also imagined the conversation that would take place when I got there. "Rebecca, what are you doing?" he would ask. And I would have no good answer to give in response. Truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing. Not one. And maybe that's where this all started...

Captured At:2347

When I finally emerged from my apartment I discovered that the world outside was every bit as lovely as my windows suggested. The attribute I had failed to observe was the wind, and it proved to be too much as I attempted my usual tight-rope walk across the railing on the far side of the park. I sighed and continued walking.

As I made the next several steps my mind replayed words I had read earlier. Surprised you're single...never seemed to lack in outgoingness...someone like you is bound to be ungodly picky... Single was far to gentle a word. And picky? Try impossible...unreachable... Suddenly a gust of wind prompted my arms to stretch out low and behind me. I imagined wings emerging from them to sweep me up into the sky and was almost disappointed to find my feet still treading the pavement.

Several steps more and the song on my iPod changed to one they play sometimes at church. It drew me off the road and across the grass to the steps of the amphitheater, which I slowly ascended. I stopped at the concrete slab in the middle of the grass and sat cross-legged, eyes closed, head tipped gently backward, arms resting on my legs with palms facing up.

When the wind came at me again my external awareness told me I was perched on a cliff by the Pacific Ocean. The next gust came from a different direction and seemed to transport me from the seaside to a grey slab of rock looking over a lush green valley. Every time the wind moved, it seemed I did also. I was sitting unharmed as vehicle lights flew past me on both sides while a nighttime cityscape rested in the distance. I saw lazy savannahs, unidentifiable old-world cities, sailboats on the ocean, snowy Alaskan expanses lined with pine trees, the Golden Gate Bridge, grand cathedrals, and packs of wide-eyed children on third world streets. I watched the gentle spiraling motion of the most mesmerizing galaxy I had ever seen and continued on to shoot through the stars.

The images and sensations of being elsewhere flashed only long enough to identify them, then immediately disappeared. I fought to keep my mind still as it all played out within me. Trying to remember too much of it, trying too hard to understand what was happening made me less receptive to the ones that followed.

Then everything went quiet. I slowly opened my eyes to a half moon overhead. All of the orange in the sky was gone, and it had left behind a dimming park that seemed small and foreign to me. I stood up and began the walk home.

Nothing changes. That point was what became clearest in the eternity it seemed I had spent at the mercy of where the wind chose to carry me. These things I feel and know now are no different than they have always been to me. They are no different than they were before me. They will be no different wherever I go or long after I am gone. There is a constancy to everything.

There was an odd sense of comfort in that reminder. I did not have to go on to be or do anything. I had nothing to worry, nothing to fear. When the magnification on the struggles of life is reduced to allow the much bigger picture into view, there is no trace of them to be found. Somehow, some way, everything rights itself. My story will be no different.

Captured At:2126

Remember Kids, Drugs are Bad.

The message contained in the email forward was a simple "I think I forgot to pass this on". It was an innocent enough remark, but there had been no forgetting to share. I recognized the animation - one of a lunar habitation module concept - and recalled the conversation it had prompted in reference to our tools. I responded that he had emailed it back in April, I thought, but that I had no idea exactly when I was anymore.

The statement I received in return was one of sympathetic agreement. We have all been looking at the calendar these past several weeks and scratching our heads. Nearly half of the year has gone by without a trace.

I hate seeing life do that to me.

Last Friday I had my last two wisdom teeth removed. I put off taking the Diazepam as long as possible on Thursday evening so that I could finish and submit my Remote Sensing homework, then swallowed down one of the pills during the last minutes I was allowed food or drink. I remember very little from that point forward. Hours would lapse between drugs and naps and slowly gumming my way through whatever happened to pass for food. I have little recollection of them.

Then I walked outside. It seemed like forever since I had felt warmth or squinted at the sunlight. The humidity hit me squarely in the face. It hurt. Not because it had poked my little chipmunk cheeks still puffy with the swelling, but because it had registered somewhere far deeper inside. Suddenly I wondered what I had done so horribly wrong with my life.

At moments like those losing days to drug induced fog doesn't seem all that bad. For once my mind is completely silent and unaware of the conversations I apparently become prone to carrying on. I don't worry about how much I have lost or failed or screwed up. I carry only gratitude for my caregivers and don't even consider how many people I know on this planet that can't even pause to wonder about me. What is truly important wins and the rest simply fails to matter. Everything seems so much easier when my mind is turned off.

But life wasn't meant to be spent anesthetized. I have taken nothing stronger than ibuprofen all day. The haze is slowly breaking and reality continues to settle back in. My mouth throbs, my head pulses, my heart continues to beat. Still I continue pressing on. It feels like such stupidity sometimes, but I know no other way. I keep working and hoping for something better that I no longer feel convinced I will ever actually get. It is an incredibly defeating feeling. But that is all reality has ever done for me.

Truth is I'm tired. I should have drifted off to sleep long ago. And when I recognize later how out of sorts this was, I'm going to be grateful I have enough sense to throw the bottles away when the surgeries are done. Life may not be easy, but the bad days are still better than being a vegetable.

Captured At:2230

ATL->HOU

At present I am sprawled awkwardly across the two seats that compose this side of row 19. I am tired and hungry, light-headed from being unable to eat anything ATL could offer in the short time between connections, and pressing westward anyway. They told me this meeting was far less important than ensuring I took adequate recovery time after last week's surgery. I think all it would have required was one flash of the right look for them to keep me home, but I would have none of it. So I still have a bit of a lisp and cannot eat solid food. So what? I can dissolve out of this chipmunk disguise anywhere.

On the flight from MCO to ATL it occurred to me that I have spent far more of this year feeling unwell than I had previously realized. For some cases, like now, there were definitive reasons. For others I am unable to pinpoint exactly what it is that wore me down. That string of unidentified stresses could be why it feels like life is moving so fast.

The pilot has just come over the intercom and announced that we are free to move about the cabin. I wonder if he and the flight attendants have any idea that they blast out anybody listening to the satellite radio when they do that. You would think there would be a volume control somewhere to prevent deafening their passengers.

Delicately placing the buds back into my ears causes me to consider my personal evolution over the past decade. I listen to far less music than I once did, and lately it seems I settle on internet stations that will pump wordless beats and melodies through the speakers. I think part of the allure is that I have yet to identify exactly what it speaks to me. Most anything else I used to listen to already has an answer.

My thirst now also has an answer. The cup of cran-apple juice I was handed feels like a godsend. I have no idea why it became the beverage of choice. Since when do I drink this stuff?

For all of the changes in tastes and locations I feel like I remain largely unchanged. My awareness and understanding shift. The core that makes me me does not. I will always be who I am. It is both an amazing and frustrating proposition.

I entered a fairly dark place when I returned home this week. I think being unable to take care of myself in a world where out of sight equates to out of mind reminded me of some things I do not particularly like. This incapacitation also followed another night of being the dumb kid in a room full of people losing precious minutes of their lives because I continue to ask needless questions. Strings like these cause me to wonder what it is I have done wrong with my life and how I could even consider hoping for the things I increasingly desire. I fail and I get it all wrong and maybe I have just been deluding myself this entire time. It is a very self-defeating sort of place.

But thank God that those spans always level out, whatever may cause it to happen. Last night when I should have been sleeping or packing for HOU I was instead skimming years of pictures. There before me was this amazing world that it was hard to believe had ever been real. I looked at what I had been part of and what I continued to become part of. I considered the places I have gone since graduation that I know I would never have seen under different circumstances. And, in a moment of sheer narcissism, I focused on myself - my face and characteristic expressions, my utter lack of a fashion sense, the times my eyes were shining so brightly that nothing could hold them back...

She's beautiful. Granted she is also a bit silly, informal, uncultured and temperamental, but what I saw amazed me. I envied it. I envied her. I envied that she can stay fixed in a world I have to fight every day to stay out of for my own sake. It seems a strange thing to say given that I and this person I envy are one, but it feels like we are infinitely far apart. She's too free for even me to keep.

My hope is that this evolution of mine one day ends in harmony. I hope that who I am, who I want to be and who I know I could be find a way to come together. I hope one day I recognize the images of myself looking back at me because they finally match the one I have had in my head all along. And I hope that if they do she is joyful and well and complete and alive.

Once again the pilot has blasted out the satellite radio to inform us that our approach to Houston is imminent. Outside the Texas weather looks pleasant and hosts an expanse of popcorn clouds loosely congregating between the belly of the plane and the ground. The juice is gone, the music has changed once again, and my head feels level in spite of its craving for nourishment. Hopefully Hobby has somebody who sells ice cream.

Captured At:2330

The Return South

We were still on the ground in Houston when the gelatinous woman seated beside me began snoring. Suddenly she snapped awake and returned to the crossword puzzle in her hand as if nothing had happened, leaving me and the occupant of the aisle seat slightly bewildered. Within 5 minutes she was again slumped over and repeating her nasal symphony. This process cycled for most of my conscious time during the flight. I napped only when the focus on dissecting my Remote Sensing book dissolved. Hopefully I did not snore.

In Atlanta I learned that having a single flight number does not equate to having a single plane as my travel people had assured me when the reservations were made. The connection arrived late, and some combination of conditions I did not catch kept us sitting on the runway for over an hour.

The time passed quickly and without any sense of inconvenience because I had once again buried myself in Physical Principles of Remote Sensing. Diving into the text so thoroughly has been useful and it is forcing me to reach into my memory to remember things I had once mastered but never use. So much of my formal education has been that way.

When we began moving again and rounded the final corner to take off I was impressed by the row of planes backed up behind us. I had never seen a traffic jam with wings before, but was unable to access my camera with adequate time to capture a picture. I will be better prepared in the future.

A cruising altitude of 35,000ft. placed us well above any of the inclement weather that contributed to the delay and provided a gorgeous view of the clouds. The evening sun illuminated one side of the puffs as a pure white and cast the other into a deep blue. This combination made them pop unlike anything I had ever seen from the air.

The sun was inches above the horizon and breaking free of the clouds as we descended. It emerged glowing brilliantly as the wheels hit the ground. The XM radio began playing The Moody Blues while we taxied to the gate. It immediately made me think of my dad and road trips as a kid, and gave me a comforting sense of home usually absent when I return from adventures abroad.

When the glass doors opened to let me into the parking lot I made two immediate observations: it had definitely rained, and the state still smelled like smoke. I was officially back in Florida. One drive down dark roads lined with silhouetted trees and I would be back in my little apartment. Milo's wheels awkwardly tread the pavement as another song I remembered from my childhood cycled through my head. I seemed all too appropriate. Takin' the long way home...

Captured At:1130

False Security

Captured At: 106

Captured At:2211