the artemis ii launch caught me off guard.
a lot has been going on lately. i’ve had some pretty significant personal struggles, sure, but more than that, i’m in the same boat as everyone- pouring five dollar gasoline in my car so i can commute to the minimum wage job i got with my bachelors degree.
truth be told, i haven’t seen the moon in months. i don’t know when i stopped looking up. it could’ve been when dozens of schoolgirls were murdered in the name of liberation, or when my cat was dying in my arms and i spent the last few hours of her life trying to find someone to cover my shift that evening. regardless, it’s safe to say that a mission to the moon wasn’t on my radar.
but then i saw the first braids to leave earth’s orbit (unconfirmed, of course). friendship bracelets and pink pony clubs and carroll, the brightest of them all.
i think there’s a reason why i enjoy things too much. sometimes, when i consume a new piece of media, something clicks in my brain and i can’t stop thinking about it.
you know how, in some stories, there’s an intergalactic war, some struggle against colonialism and empire? and there’s always some sort of planetary coalition, struggling towards bleak hope at a snail’s pace.
then, there’s always something that forces earth into the mix. something that sends earth’s best and brightest to join the cause. all these planets, all these alien species invented by writers, and they will always, always need humanity’s help in battle. still, the battle usually makes its way back home.
we’re never depicted large or strong, our technology is always shown to be primitive. there’s rarely, if ever, any logic to how humanity comes out on top in every story i’ve ever loved.
but i don’t know if there should be.
i once saw a trail cam video of a moose stuck in a frozen pond. it struggled and struggled, then it seemed to get tired. it would have died, had there not been a team of park rangers nearby. they hacked at the ice, even as the moose swung its antlers in their direction. they could’ve been killed in a single well-placed strike, but they freed the moose anyway.
humans do that. we do things that don’t make sense. we free dangerous animals because they deserve freedom. we move our hands up and down and go “six-seven!” make others smile in a way that transcends language barriers. we create endless amounts of art and fill museums and libraries with each others stories.
we risk our lives to go to the moon.
we name the brightest craters after those we love.
tomorrow i will pour five dollar gasoline in my car so i can commute to the minimum wage job i got with my bachelors degree. the earth will still be stained with blood and there will still be more than enough hatred to go around.
but i think, maybe, humanity will be good.
i think we’ll all look up at the same moon and know we’ve been there and beyond. i think we’ll bring each other joy in our small, illogical ways. you know, six-seven, and whatnot.
christina, victor, reid, and jeremy are home.
i think i’ll go take a look at the sky.
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