“Should I be hearing something?”
That was my split-second thought as the dark world around me was lit impossibly ablaze by the sun-like glow of the launch of NASA’s most powerful-ever rocket. The beginning of Artemis.
Little did I know what was coming.
But let me back up.
This was my third trip to NASA at the invitation of the NASA Social team. My third time trying to make a nearly lifelong dream come true. My third time staring at that rocket on the launchpad across the water from my literal front-row seats. My third time willing it to go. Just send it. Light it. Do it. This time, at night.
It has been nearly two months since that first attempt.
It has also been two months that I’ve been in therapy for the first time in my life.
Wait. What?
Did I go to therapy because a rocket didn’t launch LOL, you weird space nerd? No.
I went to therapy because thanks to some people who love me, they recognized that I no longer knew how to feel. That I had stopped processing things. That I had begun filling every moment of my days so I wouldn’t have to deal with shit. I had no emotions other than fear. I didn’t recognize the slow disconnect I had been undergoing for more than a decade. I didn’t recognize the weight I carried at all times until it was so heavy it crushed every other emotion. Every happy moment. Every thing. Every walk on the beach, every show, every holiday, every moment I smiled or laughed, every time I seemed joyful and happy and carefree in my writing, pictures, in person or in social media posts? My companion was a weight I wouldn’t acknowledge. This was not depression. This was the result of things I don’t choose to share, suffice it to say I became an emotionless robot with an absolutely cratered self-esteem. My therapist, who is probably reading this, would ask me to describe how something made me feel and I no longer knew how to recognize emotions enough to find their corresponding label. What is this I’m feeling? My only response was fear. I feel fear. Worry. I no longer knew how to feel happy. I no longer believed anyone was happy or that happiness was a possibility. Life is just hard. And then you die. The end. Blip.
So that first NASA launch attempt? Incredible? Amazing? Fun? A dream? No. Just a weight. An inability to fully be in the moment and enjoy it. As if I watched it all from the outside.
That second NASA launch attempt? Exciting? Fun? No. Just a weight. An inability to fully — you get it.
My therapist asked me to describe what I was feeling when that first attempt was a scrub, and that was hard for someone who no longer recognized emotions. The only way I could describe it to her was to say, mostly-jokingly, “It felt like sexual frustration.”
WHEN I TELL YOU SHE WROTE SOMETHING DOWN ON HER NOTEPAD AFTER I SAID THAT. NOOOOooooooooooo.
But, the thing about therapy is, it works. You do the work, and it sometimes works. An evening of mechanical keyboard-building (huge nerd) and dinner with my bestie Woy, and on the drive home, for the first time, I recognized that the weight had left me temporarily. It came back, but that was my first win.
That was followed by a few more wins. A few evenings where I had fun and as I went to bed, I searched for the weight and it was not to be found. I couldn’t identify the emotions that were left, but it was not the weight. It was not the fear. It was … something other.
I’m clawing my way out of the pit of my self-esteem issues. I no longer submit my writing and say, “This is bad and they will hate it and reject it.” I’m more willing to share pictures of myself online, although I still avoid the camera as much as humanly possible. I catch myself saying, “I hate mysel—.” No. No. Stop.
I am working on it.
Back to this launch. After some very stressful moments as NASA dealt with another leaky valve (“Hydrogen is such a bitch,” I said on the bus.), then a faulty ethernet switch (“Damn it, Space Force. Do your job!”), we were a … go. I couldn’t believe it. Not a scrub. A go. A go for launch. At night. With Jupiter glowing bright. The orange moon awash in the sun’s light. A few wispy clouds. A soft breeze.
Darkness.
Quiet.
Breathe.
Blinding light. Impossibly bright blinding light. And silence???
What?
I had a plan. I would snap one photo of my face in the glow of the rocket so that I could remember what I was feeling in that moment, other than weight. I would snap one photo of the first light, one of it on the way up, and one of it as it disappeared. No video. No other photos. I was not experiencing my dream through a screen. I would experience it with my eyes and my heart. So that’s what I did. I stuck to the plan.
The rocket screamed upward, so much faster than it seems on TV where it looks like a slow-motion rising. In person, that shit FLIEEEES. Zoom.
But no boom.
Just fire and light.
It was directly over our heads in a matter of seconds, huge, blazing, surrounding us in an orange glow. And then it happened.
It’s the oddest noise. It doesn’t feel like it’s coming from the sky. It comes up your feet. It goes through your heart. It shoots into your ears and your brain and it rattles your whole soul. Me, a mostly-deaf person, had to cover her ears for a few seconds to be able to tolerate it. An otherworldly pulsing that I can’t adequately describe took over my brain and pushed outward as the rocket shot further upward, heading toward the glowing moon. A flaming tail, a snaking, curling spring of a white trail behind it.
I watched it through wet, shining eyes until it was a tiny speck of light. A twinkling star in the sky. A pinprick. Gone to the moon. Be back later.
My heart was wild and my adrenaline buzzing. My hands shook. I could have won a marathon. Wrestled a bear. Punched an adult pterodactyl right out of the sky.
And.
And there was no weight. There was contentment. Excitement. Elation. But most of all, that contentment. I recognized the contentment. That’s a huge win.
This was more than a launch for me. This was first light. This was a dream realized fully, not partially. Not faked. Not with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes or my heart. I felt it rise through my feet, shoot through my heart, pulse in my brain, rattle my whole soul. Healing.
Progress.
Only. Ever. Onward.
That is to say, keep going. Through it. All. There’s another side. The other side.
Walls can be broken through. Barriers can be pushed down. Hurdles can be cleared.
Life is hard. Life will remain hard for us all at times. No one gets to have it easy. But there is happiness out there. There is healing. There is hope. There is contentment.
And I can say NASA gave me that lesson. I’ll forever cherish that gift as I seek out more wins. I know they’re out there.
As for my therapist. I did find another word to describe this launch. How it felt. How I was feeling. An emotion. A label. A word that will make her scribble furiously on her notepad.
Orgasmic.
Really looking forward to my next session, you guys.