Space Camp II (Coming of Age)

I could see the neutral buoyancy tank from where I was sitting. Just outside the lunchroom and across the hallway was a window where you could peer right into the giant tank of water. Waiting in the clear blue depths was a little mock-up of a satellite and if you craned your neck just right you could see the space suits set out above the water and waiting for bodies to fill them. By donning the suit and submersing yourself in the water here at Space Camp you could simulate microgravity exactly like NASA astronauts do.

But I wasn't in the buoyancy tank, I was in the lunchroom. I had been herded in alongside a mass of my laughing and boisterous peers, though I was silent amid the noisy crowd. We had only been here for a few hours and hadn't even seen our suitcases, much less unpacked and settled in. And yet they all seemed so at ease, as though they all knew each other from another life and were just rediscovering old friends. Why weren't they scared, like I was? Didn't the shine and polish of the buildings intimidate them like it did me? My life started flashing before my eyes.

But not in the way it flashes when you're dying and you see everything that's happened to you over a long and fruitful life. I only saw a week, and not the week prior. It was that week. The long, lonely trials I could face at Space Camp. I could spend the week friendless and alone. I would be there, but only in body and just floating on the edges of the group. I was scared.

I sat down with my lunch at a mostly empty table both hoping and fearing that someone would come and sit with me. It was baffling to me that I could see no one who was just as uncomfortable as me, quietly and nervously contemplating the situation from afar.

Trying to hide my fear, I focused all of my attention on my food. I kept my head down and so I didn't see him sit down. But when I glanced up and across the table, he was sitting there. He was clearly older than I was and had no place sitting there, but that's exactly where he was. Across from me, with his elbows on the table and soft look on his face.

"Hey," he said.

I didn't want to think he was talking to me. I didn't know why he would be. So I looked around as though I didn't know how alone I was before looking back at him and saying, "Me?"

"Yeah, I just wondered why you were sitting all alone?"

"I dunno," I mumbled as looking down at the table. The answer hung in the air for a fraction of a second and I looked up and saw that this boy knew exactly what I meant even if I didn't say it. He knew that I had just flown on a plane alone for the first time in my life, that I was intimidated by the camaraderie that my peers had fallen into so easily, and that I was scared out of my mind but hardly even knew why.

He smiled at me and said, "Look, Space Camp can be one of the coolest things you'll ever do and you're going to have a blast this week. But you can't make any friends sitting by yourself and you won't have much fun unless you make a friend. So go sit with somebody. Talk to them, ask them how they're doin'. Make a friend. It'll be more fun if you do."

And with another smile and a little shrug, he stood up to sit somewhere else. Probably with somebody he never met before, I figured. Someone who he didn't know now but would turn out to be his friend later. This kid probably picked up friends like toddlers pick up germs.

I tried to discount what he said, tried to tell myself that I couldn't, wouldn't, and heck, shouldn't even try to make a friend. But the thought remained and taunted me. I wanted so badly to be just like I imagined this older boy to be.

So when dinner came and I was again herded into the lunchroom I knew I would have to go and sit with someone. If I didn't that boy might come and talk to me again and ask me why I was still alone, and I'd have less of a response than before. I couldn't let this nameless mentor down, so I gathered all the courage I could muster and sat by the least intimidating boy I could find and asked him the first question that came to mind:

"Hey, do you know if we get to go in the neutral buoyancy tank this week?"