Orbit

Day 25: Orbit
As I was yanked out of the ocean, everything around me became a blur. The only things I could make out were the colors of the sky; it quickly shifted from the familiar pale blue to a black. Was I traveling through time?

That question was answered for me when I could finally get up. I wasn't going through time itself, but I was in a strange, gray box, with warnings and labels all around machinery and expensive-looking equipment. I tried to walk forward, only to tumble around in place, flailing around like a fish out of water. Something obviously wasn't right, so I looked for a window to figure out what was going on. As I found one, I looked out and realized the situation I was in.

I saw the Earth, spinning beneath me, the blues, greens, and browns passing by like the clouds floating above it.
It took a really long time to truly understand the scope of all of this. I had seen the planet before me several times before while on this journey, but I was thinking about other things those times. Here, there was nothing but me, this space station, and the blue planet I called home.

I leaned against the window of the space station, to try and look at things more, but as I did, the door opened, throwing me out of the spinning tin can and out into the abyss that it shielded me from.

I wasn't too bothered by this, since it allowed me to get a better look at where I was. I floated above the space station that I was housed in, and took in everything from a new perspective.

The fact that I could even imagine what it's like in space is a real testament to how far our species has come in terms of developments. There are many things that led up to this moment, and to think that we're possibly living on the only floating rock in the universe that has the capacity to bear life capable of doing something like this is absolutely astounding...

I thought even more about the people I knew. People I called family, friends, acquaintances, rivals... It truly made me remember how connected we were in the grand scheme of things. We might live hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles apart, but we're all at least on the same planet.

Well, I wasn't, but that would soon change as I started to feel like I was falling back towards the Earth again.