Why Did You Leave Earth?

Lifted up. That’s how I would describe the feeling as we left the Earth. Pulled by imaginary strings, pushed into the above, how would you say it? We are packed in here like tight luggage for a long trip. One thousand light years, give or take, and we will arrive beyond our sun and at the greatest planet ever, Final Peace. 

It’s like dying, they say. Maybe it is dying. For all I know they put us in this tin can to send us to Jesus. I take a deep breath, as full and lung-filling as the doctor’s partial sedation will allow. It’s not enough and I gasp. We are all fighting for air. Whatever they are piping into this compartment is not quite the same. 

I am homesick. Apples, seasons, weather, all left behind us, replaced by the hum of our propulsion and unnatural light. There is nothing here to like. What have we given up? I didn’t think the transition would be this alienating. I didn’t imagine I would no longer feel like myself. I feel so wrong. It dawns on me that I must have been on Earth for a reason. I had been tethered there because that is where I belonged. I could only hope I would feel differently at our destination. I didn’t think there was a way back. We gave up so much. 

No matter what you think of the Earth and its troubles, you will miss it when you leave. You’ll look back and you’ll realize there are things on that gentle blue ball in space that are not elsewhere. 

I ask the people next to me why they left. One, a man in his forties, says his wife and son are already at Final Peace. He is going to be with them. That is the best reason I have heard so far. The woman on my other side agrees with me. The Earth had become dark and depressing. Too much war. Too much fear. She left to start anew. I suppose we are both doing that, in a way. I am in search of the Kingdom of God. She wondered why I didn’t think that was on Earth: Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Why didn’t I think of that before I strapped myself into this chair? 

I left Earth because I wanted quiet, but the truth is I made my own loudness. I could have shut it off, the worry and the looking around in terror. I could have stayed on the Earth if I had quieted myself there. And now I didn’t know what was ahead.