Astronaut

I learned early that space smells faintly like hot metal and bragging comets, and that the quickest way to lose a pen is to let go of it in zero gravity. It will escape like a shy idea, drifting just out of reach until you pretend you don’t care, at which point it bounces off your nose and declares itself found. That’s the general rule up there: everything is a traveler, including your patience, your socks, and your expectations. Tie down what you love and keep a net handy for the rest.

On launch morning, I did the world’s most serious dance: step into the suit, bend like a refrigerator, trust the zipper, and breathe like calm is oxygen. The rocket waited outside like a polite skyscraper who just discovered legs. It was all white steam and practiced thunder, a beast that only moves when a choir of engineers tells it stories about math. I climbed the long, clattering stairs, looked sideways at the river of people who had been brave enough to wake up early just to say “go,” and strapped into the seat that fit like stubborn furniture.

People always ask if I was scared. Fear is part of the equipment, like a wrench you keep in the pouch whether you need it or not. What I felt more than anything was gratitude—for the countless dull repetitions that made today feel ordinary. We had rehearsed every flicker of the checklists until surprise got bored with us. When Mission Control said they were good, I believed them the way you believe the sun will be on time. It helps that they talk like careful poetry: “vehicle healthy, systems green, you are go.”

The first seconds after ignition are an argument between the rocket and Earth’s very reasonable policy of “everything falls.” The rocket says, “watch me.” Gravity says, “please don’t.” Your cheeks hold a diplomatic summit. Your chest translates rumble into heartbeat. And then, with a shrug that feels like a new page tearing free from the book, you are moving fast enough to edit the sky. Clouds stop being above and become around—like you’ve been invited to the backstage of weather.

And then—here’s the bit every kid guesses and every grown‑up forgets—there is the sudden, laughing silence when the engines cut off and you’re not falling anymore because there’s no down to fall toward. The pencil you can never keep from rolling off the table hangs in front of you with the confidence of a moonbeam. You learn an entirely new sport: catching things gently. Everything is slow ballet now, even your thoughts, which stretch their toes and take a bow.

Life aboard is a neighborhood of careful noises. Pumps hum like patient bees. Fans whisper the world’s quietest secrets. Laptops click like tiny door latches. The refrigerator—excuse me, the food storage unit—doesn’t so much purr as apologize for not purring. We wake to a soft alarm that sounds like a reasonable toaster. We drift to the window and let Earth take our breath away without asking permission. It is a blue that argues powerfully with your vocabulary. Rivers write cursive across continents. Night arrives like a thoughtful friend who brought stars instead of cake, and then day returns ten minutes later with the sort of enthusiasm that knocks politely and still forgets to wait.

Breakfast is serious. You don’t want crumbs. Crumbs are rebels, troublemakers, tiny meteorologists of mess. That’s why tortillas are the bread of space. They roll. They fold. They behave. Peanut butter comes in a packet that looks like toothpaste and tastes like nostalgia. Jelly is a small comet that refuses to stay in one place. Your spoon is a spaceship you pilot with your lips. Somewhere, an engineer who never wanted to be a chef is the quiet hero of your morning.

Training prepared me for the checklist religion. We have checklists for checklists, and that is not a joke. We also have jokes about that. Humor is a life support system for the mind. It turns pressure into perspective and reminds you that while the universe is grand, it has a sense of timing. In our crew, Nia tells the science puns, I tell the weather ones, and Commander Lee tells the kind that are only funny after you’ve considered the heat equation.

Spacewalk day always begins with an extra breath. The suit transforms you into a friendly refrigerator with opinions. Your fingers become astronauts inside little space castles called gloves. When the airlock sighs and you tumble gently into the black that isn’t really black—it’s velvet with glitter—you remember every time someone told you to be careful, and you agree. The station stretches beneath you like a silver playground. Earth rolls underneath with the unbothered grace of a cat who knows it’s beautiful. You move like courtesy is fuel. Slow is smooth; smooth is fast; fast is rude to forever.

My task that day was simple in the way mountains are simple: replace a finicky power module without dropping it. The module had the personality of a sleepy dragon and the weight of three pizzas. In microgravity, three pizzas weigh nothing, which is dangerous because it tricks you into forgetting that inertia is the boss. I talked to the module in my best teacher voice, the one that says “we’re going to line up now and we’re going to like it.” It cooperated. The latches clicked. Somewhere inside the station, electricity stood up straighter.

There was a tiny moment of drama when a wrench decided to pursue a solo career. Tools in space are romantic; they dream of freedom. That is why we give them leashes. I reeled it in with the practiced patience of someone who has lost a lot of pencils in a lot of classrooms. “Nice try,” I told it. “The band stays together.” Mission Control laughed, which is the sound of home sneaking through your headset.

People think the most surprising part of space is the view; it is. But the second most surprising part is the kindness. Everything up there is a conversation between strangers who trust each other. You pass a bag across the cabin, and in that moment the bag is a promise and the person is a bridge and you are part of a sentence that makes sense only because someone else is speaking with you. When sleep refuses to arrive, a crewmate floats by with a bad joke and a good story. When you practice emergency procedures, you realize you are practicing love in a fluorescent room.

I kept a diary on the wall in dots of tape. Blue for “excellent,” green for “learned something,” yellow for “could have been gentler,” red for “apologized, improved.” By the end of the mission, the pattern looked like a galaxy with manners. On the day we grew lettuce in the little space garden, I added a new color—glow‑in‑the‑dark—for “ate a salad while orbiting, and it tasted like a high five.” We named the plants after people who taught us things. Mine was Ms. Alvarez, who taught me that curiosity is a muscle and you should exercise it until it can lift a conversation.

We filmed an experiment where water behaves like a surprised cat. A blob escaped the bag and tried to convince a camera lens to become its planet. It stuck there trembling, reflecting a tiny upside‑down station, a tiny upside‑down me. I tapped the lens and the droplet drifted into my straw with the dignity of a ship docking at dusk. On Earth that would be cute. Up here it felt like diplomacy with physics.

One evening—if you can call any fifteen‑minute stretch “evening”—there was a soft chime and a new string of numbers on the console. A guidance sensor had decided to audition for a mystery role. Numbers are actors that only speak truth; you just have to learn their language. We cross‑checked, we breathed, we ran a test that sounded like a choir of laptops. The anomaly apologized by vanishing. We logged it anyway, because in space you treat mysteries like neighbors: assume good intent, know their house number.

The day before reentry, I wrote a letter to my future self: Be as patient on Earth as you learned to be up here. Build checklists for your kindness. Don’t hurry past the window just because gravity won the argument again. Pay attention when soup smells like soup. The ship will come home with scratches and stories. So will you. That is not a flaw; that is a map.

Reentry is the world’s most exciting high‑five. The atmosphere warms its hands and claps at the capsule. Parachutes deploy with very firm opinions. The ocean, which has never once cared for theatrics, nonetheless manages to arrive on cue and say, “Welcome back; you look taller.” Boats appear. Hands appear. Voices appear—the kind with accents, jokes, and plans for dinner. The first step on the deck feels like convincing a roller skater that shoes are a thing again. No one is graceful. Everyone is forgiven.

Back home, gravity tucks you in with the gentleness of a brick wrapped in a blanket. You drop things for a week because your hands still think the world is a trampoline. Occasionally, you look up too fast when a bird flies by, because a piece of your brain has been trained to notice motion in the corner of a window and say, “continent.” You find your pen behind your ear and laugh out loud in the cereal aisle.

Kids ask me if space changed me. Of course. Everything changes you; that’s the point of doing it. I find myself standing still a little longer when the sun hits the kitchen counter. I thank the fridge for being simple. I send a text to the team on Tuesdays just to say, “green across the board,” which we all understand to mean, “How are your hearts?” When a bus is late, I pretend the city is practicing orbital mechanics and I am practicing patience, which is not pretending at all.

People also ask what I learned that matters down here. I learned that preparation is a form of kindness. I learned that the bravest thing you can do in a complicated world is to be easy to help. Label your cables. Write the date. Put the flashlight back where you found it. Small order allows big wonder. Also, never underestimate tortillas.

On clear nights, I sit on the back steps and drink something warm and tell the Moon that we did our best. The Moon, who has seen everything and has the good manners not to brag about it, does not answer. But sometimes a star winks at an impolite angle, and a breeze borrows the exact temperature of the air inside the station, and I remember that the universe is big, yes, but it is also busy caring for little things.

If you’re reading this because you want to go, start practicing now. Not the rocket part—the ready part. Learn to listen so well that people feel smarter when they stand near you. Learn to apologize without asterisks. Learn to tidy as you work, so your future self thinks you’re a genius. Learn to be the person who notices a floating pen and returns it without a speech. Space takes all kinds of heroes. The quiet ones keep the ship together.

As for me, I still dream of floating, but now the dreams include the sound of dinner plates and the way the hallway light makes galaxies on the ceiling. That’s the trick of adventure: it doesn’t take you away from home; it teaches you how to come back better. Sometimes I wake before dawn, walk to the window, and watch the streetlights wink out one by one like patient stars. I make a tortilla, because habits are souvenirs, and I write in my diary with a pen that—today, anyway—stays blissfully where I leave it.