How Did I Get Here Part I.

            I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas back in 1987. My Dad was in sales while my Mom was a former flight attendant (a job she would later return to). I had grandparents that had been in the military, and later on worked in hotels and grocery stores. Now I am currently living in China, teaching little kids English.

            Did any of my parents or grandparents imagine that I would be here, doing what I’m doing now?

            How did I get here?

* * *

            When I was a child, I had a plan already charted out for me. I first dreamed of being an astronaut at eight, and by the age of ten, I thought that I had the whole thing, practically my entire life, planned out perfectly. I would get a Bachelor’s degree (if not higher) in either engineering or one of the sciences, and become an aerospace engineer (or perhaps an astrophysicist). If I weren’t working directly for NASA, then I’d be either at Boeing or Lockheed Martin (or perhaps even design rides for Disney as an Imagineer!). Also get a pilot’s license for good measure (flying planes sounded awesome!). In addition I would become fluent in both Spanish and Russian (the latter so that I could talk to cosmonauts); maybe even pick up another language or two. As a side career I would also be a writer (mainly writing science fiction). And then I would become an astronaut, maybe even becoming one of the first to return to the Moon or to land on Mars.

            I was honestly obsessed with becoming an astronaut, probably admittedly to an unhealthy level. This was for a variety of reasons. I had always been a lover of travel, and going into space seemed like the ultimate trip. Even at a young age, the idea of being one of the first people to explore someplace sounded amazing, like a modern day Marco Polo or Leif Erikson. Not only would I be a mere traveller, but also I’d truly be a pioneer, one of the first to be someplace practically untouched by humans. I had also always loved flying in planes, and looked forward to going onto them; at the time my Mom worked for Southwest Airlines in reservations, so we were fortunate enough to be able to travel for day trips fairly frequently. Going on a spacecraft seemed even more amazing. And to this day, I am fascinated by space travel, and to an extent at least, probably always will be.

            But there was one other factor that kept me wanting to become an astronaut. Honestly, if it wasn’t for this factor, I might have dropped the idea of becoming an astronaut earlier. It was seeing my father come home from work. I honestly don’t think I remember him ever once coming home from work and saying, “I had a good day today.” Virtually every time he came home from work, from whatever job or company he was working for at the moment, he would sigh and say about his day, “It was okay.”

            From an early age I saw my fellow elementary school students happily talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up. They dreamed of being NFL football players, of being actors and rock stars, inventors, and of even becoming Power Rangers (a pretty popular career choice for those in Kindergarten and the first grade during my generation). And I saw the adults amongst me, and saw that they were mostly office workers, with perhaps a few factory workers here and there. When I overheard conversations amongst them, they often complained about their jobs, something that took a very large chunk of their time. Oftentimes they would simply sigh and say, “Well it puts food on the table.”

            At around the time I had decided to become an astronaut, my father told me about how he had dreamed of being an architect. He told me other dreams he had had about writing books and about these stories he had had in his head. He told me about how he had had ideas for companies he could start, and trips he had wanted to go on, about inventions he had hoped would change the world. He had once told me about his dream of riding a motorcycle across the country and telling people about Jesus. I encountered other adults who had had dreams that they didn’t quite reach, like my uncle who had tried to become a professional actor before getting married for the first time.

            I’m not sure if my Dad ever wrote down an actual bucket list, but if he did I’m not sure if he accomplished any of his goals.

            By the time I was nine, I developed a deep fear, maybe even an anxiety, about not becoming an astronaut. I was afraid that if I didn’t reach my dream, that I would automatically be doomed to a job that I hated, and thus a life I detested. As a child, whenever I looked up at the Moon and the stars, it always inspired a sense of awe and wonder within me. I feared that if I ended up working an office job like my father, that every time I looked up at the majestic night sky, that it would inspire nothing but sighs and sadness.

            Overall my dream of becoming an astronaut remained strong, but it waned over time, and by the time I was a freshman in high school, I decided that it wasn’t for me. This was for several reasons. For one, by the time I finished up middle school, it finally dawned on me that math wasn’t my strong suit. I struggled in it, and just didn’t find it interesting in the least. And unfortunately for me, aptitude in math is a major requirement for being either an astronaut or an engineer. I was also losing interest in science as well, or at least in some types of science (I still was fascinated by astronomy and certain types of physics). And in the eighth grade I also took an intro to drawing course as an elective that made me fall in love with art, so I finally began to develop more deep interests. At that time art become a lifelong passion, something I still do to this day.

            In early high school, I felt a mixture of freedom and anxiety about my future. On the one hand, there was a part of me that felt free to explore new possibilities. On the other hand, there was another part of me that felt lost, lost without my “perfect” plan and with dreams I hadn’t discovered yet.

            I felt lost and wondered if I would ever find my way.

Note: Along with this blog, I am also working on a fantasy novel, and am putting up the chapters of the first draft one at a time. You can view the novel, "The Princess of Infinite Tomorrows," at https://princessofinfinitetomorrows.blogspot.com/.