Europa

May 31, 2048

I am dreading tomorrow. We start up bright and early in the morning and yet here I am up thinking late at night.

The training for the mission will be conducted in a facility in Houston Texas. Since Dad's old place hasn't sold yet we decided to all fly down and stay there together for a night before taking a car to the training facility in the morning. That way Diego could see me walk in and I could wait to say my goodbye until the last possible moment.

That is going to be a tough goodbye.

Now that I am actually faced with leaving my son for six weeks I'm starting to question if I'm actually making the right decision here. My whole life I've always put my career over everything. I put it over relationships, my own happiness, and how I was putting it over my relationship with my own son.

I'm hoping that once I walk through those doors, I feel reassured in my decision to join this mission, because right now I'm not feeling so great about it. Every time I try to sleep tonight, I keep thinking of Diego, and all the joy he's brought me since the day I brought him into the world.

Now I was beginning to think of all the milestones I would miss. All the sports games, and dances, and plays, and science fairs that I wouldn't be there to see.

Back when I was pregnant with him, I felt a different type of nervousness. It was more of an excited nervousness. I wasn't sure I would be ready to be a mom. I didn't even know what a mother should be like considering I never had the time to get to know my mother. Then I saw his little face in the delivery room, and I knew I was ready to be a good mother. I knew at that moment I would be there for him no matter what.

Eight years later I was going back on that commitment.

The amount of guilt I feel over the choice I've made makes it hard to breathe. It is as if there is a car parked on top of my chest.

Hopefully this training camp is as intensive as they said it would be. It will make it easier not to think about the decision I've made.