Space-a-phobic?

So I'm afraid of space and no, I don't mean that in the 'opposite of claustrophobic' way. We're not talkin' wide open spaces here, I'm talking space as in 'outer'. You know, where all the stars live as balls of burning gas billions of miles away (did you get my Lion King quote?).

No, seriously, the thought of outer space terrifies me. Now don't get me wrong, I've often layed on the ground and looked up at the sky and marveled at the fact that the world exists. I start to think about how the sky looks domed and how the Earth is round and how this little thing called gravity keeps us from falling off it's surface. I think about how we are just a tiny spec in this vast universe and how infinite space is and how honestly, that freaks me out but until the other day I was never truly terrified by space. Until that is, I watched James May's "At the Edge of space" and he started to crunch the numbers.

So Mr. May got to talking about space and about different theories to do with the universe. He started to say that some theorists believe that all the stars are slowly being drawn towards black holes that will eventually engulf them. He also talked about gravitational pulls that are drawing objects in the universe closer together so that eventually everything will collide with one another and, you know, explode. That wasn't the scary part though. The scary part was when he estimated that this wouldn't happen for probably another 200, 000 trillion years!

Now for most that would have been a 'phew' moment because by golly, that means that you won't be alive to see the end when it is nigh. For me, that's when my mind went "holy shit!" because I actually can't fathom how long 200, 000 trillion years is. I don't even know how much a trillion is in the scheme of the whole 'illion' deal. What comes before a trillion? A billion? And what comes after? A gazillion? Is it a million, billion, trillion, gazillion? Is that the way it goes? I don't know! 200, 000 trillion years?! Well, fuck you, James May, I'm having none of it (no, I take that back. I love you James May).

Anyway, I suppose if nothing else, this epiphany has shed some light on why I silently judged other children who wanted to be astronauts when I was growing up. This irrational fear may have also contributed to my dislike of the use of gold stars in the education system, as well as my general abhorrence to all movies (bar Star Wars) that are set in 'the great beyond'.

In conclusion: I am space-a-phobic. It scares the shit out of me- maybe not literally- but perhaps if you shot me into space, maybe then, literally.

Space. Not a fan.

-Nadia X