Return home

It’s hard to imagine

life

on the station ever coming

to an end,

that a day will come when I 

can return to Earth and be around other people.

I stopped counting the days I’ve spent up here

because

day and

night

don’t really exist. Maybe

they never

existed on Earth either, and

it’s always been just a way to

try and stay together.

The sunshine is always a good reason to be with someone.

The shadows are always a good reason to be with someone.

Up here,

the sunshine and shadows exist,

but they aren’t the same thing as down there.

When you can lower the sunshield and

stare at the sun for hours and hours, sleep under its rays,

it isn’t really the same as knowing when

it will rise and

when it will set.

Just the same, every waking moment

can be spent in shadows up here.

I wonder what it will be like

when I finally land,

soil under my feet,

real moisture in the air,

with real sunlight touching my skin,

real moonlight touching my skin.

What will the phases of the moon feel like?

Will the glitter of the stars still mystify me?

I hope so.

I hope the return is just as exciting as the exit was.

I hope finding a way to reconnect after so long in space

is as refreshing as I found disconnecting to be.

I hope there is less pain than there was before,

less fear,

less anxiety,

less depression,

and I hope there is less

desire to disconnect

and flee to the void

under some pretence

of being a watcher in the sky. 

I know my time up here,

floating all by my lonesome

will come to an end

and it is hard to imagine the return.