AUGUST 15, 2023
PEYTON JANE GIBSON
I hate space. No, not the personal or mental space that the Instagram therapists of the 2020s have taught you and me to hold so dear. Capital S Space.
When I was a kid, I tolerated our trip to the Kennedy Space Center because my parents bought me that disgusting $6 Neapolitan astronaut “ice cream” at the gift shop on the way out. The James Webb Telescope photos don’t “move” me or make me want to “think deeply about the universe”. I don’t care for Space X or Blue Origin’s incredible technological advances, but not because of my general distaste for Musk and Bezos.
From a Freudian perspective, we could explore this hatred as a trauma endured from 10 years of parental teasing after I chose “Ur Anus” as my planetary presentation for 4th-grade science class. I still think I did a stellar job spray painting just the right shades of blue on that styrofoam ball.
Or maybe my bitterness toward the solar system stems from failed romantic endeavours. Most men I’ve fallen for seemingly had a “thing” for Space. Perhaps, you might think, that this is “just a boy thing”. (Ignoring the inspirational story behind Hidden Figures and that it’s 2023, Barbie just came out, and we’re leaving stereotypical gender roles behind once and for all). But, reader, I implore you to reconsider– one man liked Space so much that he was a post-doc in THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS. Another had a bunch of those little plastic glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on his bedroom ceiling!
In reality, my rejection of the concept of “galaxies” comes from a much more horrifying place. Although my childhood memories of self are few and far between, I distinctly remember turning off Lil’ Romeo’s sitcom on Nick at Nite at 9:30 PM on a Tuesday and thinking, “If God isn’t real, what the fuck is out there?”. This was a particularly terrifying and unfortunate moment for me because:
If you were between 8 and 16 in North America between 2003 - 2007 I hope this unlocks some weird memory of yours, too
Fortunately, I still believed in Tinkerbell and that my Build-a-Bear® Scottie, Snowflake, was sentient, so I was able to cry myself to sleep within 15 minutes.
Snowflake, one of the last remaining artefacts from my childhood (thanks for the pic, mom)
In retrospect, this thought probably arose from the weird combination of nightly prayers for my dad not to die in the Iraq War and the Greek mythology and Wiccan spell books my self-proclaimed “witch” friend and I were way too into. Because what pre-pubescent girl wouldn’t take the constant reminder of death and intense exposure to new religions to the extreme? I have since boxed my existential dread re: the universe into “agnosticism,” locked it up, and thrown away the key.
But the fact remains; from an early age, I have shunned any knowledge of what is “out there.” What “it” is made of or what will eventually happen to it, I have decided, is not for me to know. Exploding stars? In one ear and out the other. UFOs? Cool, if they want me, they can have me.
I fully accept that somewhere, something floating around in the abyss holds the secret to the origins of human life, our solar system, our galaxy– the answer to how we all got here. But, for now, I’m more focused on the fact that we simply exist. I’m just happy to be here.