When We left Earth (learning about myself)

The Discovery channel has been televising a series called "When We Left Earth" which documents the U.S. Space Program. The Apollo 8 astronauts would be the first to travel all the way out, around the moon, and back. This was part of a methodical process to test out each new spacecraft component and each space procedure, culminating in Apollo 11 making the first landing.

So it was that Frank Borman, Bill Anders, and Jim Lovell (the Apollo 8 crew) found themselves the first astronauts to lose contact with earth as they disappeared behind the moon and then, in their new lunar orbit, they became the first humans to see the "earthrise" from the moon's horizon.

The astronauts summed up the experience by noting that we'd gone through all this planning, made all these efforts, took all these risks - but upon seeing the earthrise it became clear that while they thought we were going to learn about the moon, in the end we were actually learning about ourselves.

And so goes my summer of dating. I thought I’d set out to simply relearn the dating process - how to set them up, what to wear, where to go, etc. But in the end the greatest journey has been me learning about myself.