In the Place We Both Love

Chapter 1: A New Beginning

CHAPTER 1: A NEW BEGINNINGMOST PEOPLE TAKE THE SIMPLEST things for granted. Like the stars for example. They look up into the night sky and see the tiny sparkles, and think, oh how pretty. But then they don’t even give it a second thought. They go on about their daily lives, assuming the stars are always going to be there at night and the sun will shine every day.

Me, I don’t take anything for granted. It can be snatched away any second. And sometimes, it really just isn’t worth it to bother trying. I’ve learned that you can’t please everybody or be what others want you to be. I realized that my dreams weren’t the same as theirs. And yet, maybe it shouldn’t be that way and I should have just conformed to what he wanted. And yet there was a part of me that wanted to be what he wanted me to be. Even if it meant putting my dreams on the back burner. I reckon I’m more like him than I care to admit, because I did just what I wanted to do. But then again, if there’s something you really want, then I say go for it despite the odds.

And there are two things that I want, to touch the stars and to fly. Ever since I saw the stars as a little kid, I’ve dreamed of going to space. But everyone laughed at me, including my family. Whoever heard of a girl flying a jet, let alone going to the Heavens?

See, Daddy was an ex-Marine. He’d been kicked out for disorderly conduct, at least that’s how he explained it to me. He was a hard man, critical and often brutally mean. And Mama took it because she felt like she couldn’t do any better. She was scared to death of him and would do anything to keep him happy so he wouldn’t beat her. Even to the point of ignoring me, or letting him berate me or worse. God, I hated it at home. I went to see the recruiters when they came to my school. I never thought I’d get into the academy. So when the opportunity presented itself for me to get out of there, I took it, though it probably wasn’t the way most people would have left.

And of course they weren’t real supportive of my decision to join the Air Force or my current career path, training to be an astronaut. Daddy said that real women didn’t sling guns. You’d have thought that he’d be proud that his daughter was following in his footsteps and becoming an officer. But then he wasn’t real impressed by me or most anything I did.

But despite all that, I applied myself and here I am, a Sergeant in the United States Air Force. I couldn’t help but grin. Now I was going to be an astronaut.

It had been a month since I had received my letter from NASA stating that I had been one of the one hundred people selected for training. I’d gone to Texas, and had been given a clean bill of health. I’d be training for the next two years at least for the chance to be one of the two pilots aboard the next mission. I was well aware that the training was tough and not everyone who attempted it could handle it. But I was determined to go to the Heavens. I wanted it so bad I could taste it.....