There is nothing so bad that rules and order can't fix it.
That's what I tell myself.
That's what I very firmly and frequently tell myself.
That's what I have to believe because if I don't, I might stop and take stock of the barely-restrained chaos perpetually threatening to break around me at all times and wind up going for a stroll out the airlock.
It wasn't always this way. Or, it was but for different reasons. The need for order, for control, for things to be neat and tidy and by-the-book - yeah, that's always been there.
Grow up shuffled between various relatives, never knowing how long you were going to stay in one place, one home, one school, one country? End up such a control freak that your marriage is actually happier now that you don't have to try to deal with another person's quirks and foibles in everyday life together due an eight light-year commute.
Raised in a sea of ever-changing expectations ranging from the neglectfully lax to the almost abusively rigid and constantly, constantly breaking some rule or failing to live up to someone's expectations? Trying so hard to keep track of what was expected, was allowed at any given time that you constantly felt sick? That's how you get to the point of memorizing hundreds of inane regulations and looking like an even bigger weirdo in front of your crew (your friends?), confirming their perception of you as a joyless automaton. All for the sake of knowing what to do at all times.
All for the sake of not letting anyone down.
Never quite good enough, not for the family that was left. Not for the military, joined to get away from said family. Then finally, this chance - in exchange for two years of isolation and loneliness, a chance to do something extraordinary, to explore and lead and do something that made a difference.
And still, in the end, I let everyone down. Again.
As the horrifying call to Canaveral ends, I realize three things. One, I'm shaking. Hard. Two, I've been staring sightlessly at Eiffel's collection of little plastic dinosaurs, stuck to the comms panel with sticky-tac, and the absurdity of the sight is barely registering. And three, Eiffel has stopped babbling and is staring at me with an expression of mingled fear and concern. It takes an effort to draw enough breath to speak.
"I'm sorry."