The quote was right. The target was wrong.

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

The paperweight with that quote sat on my desk for years. I first believed it at 17, in the cereal aisle.

My favorite middle-school teacher was standing in front of me asking where I was going to college...the same teacher who'd made "Nerdy Norm" feel like an adult when no one else did. And my throat closed.

He followed it up with something kind, that I was going to do great things. I smiled and forced my cheeriest response. I didn't want to let him down, even though I had no clue where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. Just like that little middle school girl…I was still looking to amaze him with my smart answers.

So I chose a path that seemed logical and 'on par' for a student like me…engineering. (I had NO clue what an engineer actually did, but I was good enough at science and math, and I thought those would lead to honorable careers.)

I trudged through four years of college waiting for the next milestone to make it feel worth it. "If I just make it to the next phase, it'll be worth it…I'll feel better."

I began an engineering job right after graduation…so technically, looking back at that paperweight, I landed.

("Houston, I've touched down on the lunar surface!")

It should have felt incredible…but all I felt was anxiety. From the outside, I was living the dream. On the inside, I was still working my ass off to get to the next milestone.

I remember being asked to run a big project...they needed someone who could get it done efficiently and done well. I was nervous to mess it up, but at the same time, I thought, "once I finish this, I'm going to feel amazing…like I've truly earned my keep as an engineer and things will finally feel satisfying."

I finished it. There was a happy hour to celebrate, and then I got home.

I sat on the couch in my crappy rental, in a part of town I didn't even like. Nothing had changed. I still felt the exact same way I had before. And I didn't know why.

"Now what?" (You know…like that scene from Finding Nemo when the fish escape to the ocean but are still in plastic bags.)

So I did what I always did...I picked up my phone, poured a drink, started another TV series. Anything to not sit with the question.

I told myself the usual story: "maybe after the NEXT big project I'll feel like I can relax and ease into my identity…"

(Spoiler: I never did.)

I looked at that familiar paperweight, and it made me wonder…did I actually land on the moon, or did I end up in the stars? (Or worse…did I go so off course that I'm just spinning in space, stuck in a sea of astrophage?)

I didn't have an answer. Because the real question wasn't whether I'd landed on the moon...it was whether I'd landed where I even wanted to be. And I wouldn't hear that question put plainly until months later, in therapy.

I'd been working through some codependency stuff and stressors in and out of work. I kept telling him about all the things I was doing that I didn't want to be doing. And after another round of it, he asked me the simplest thing:

"Well, what do you want?"

An incredibly awkward silence.

"I have no idea," I said.

And then I started crying.

I didn't understand it in that moment...not really. I felt the chasm open, but the concept for what I'd been doing — following a script — took months to arrive. I fought it for a while. Kept circling back to that question. Slowly accepting that I'd been answering someone else's question for so long, I'd never learned the shape of my own.

I was floating in space. And I wanted to find my moon.

So I started my micro-corrections. Small, stupid-feeling ones. The first I remember was saying, out loud, "I want to read my book."

I would've done it anyway. That was the weird part. But saying I want before I did it...that felt silly. Uncomfortable, even. And when I actually sat down with the book, it felt like I had more conviction in the simple act of reading. Like the wanting gave the doing a little more weight.

I kept practicing — "I want" for tiny things, every day, even when I didn't fully believe it. Just getting used to hearing the words come out of my mouth without trying to please anyone else.

I noticed something on my last trip to California.

I used to get to the airport four hours early. Jaw clenched the whole way, clenched through TSA, still clenched when I finally got eyes on the gate.

This trip, my jaw didn't hurt. I got there with a comfortable amount of time, went to take care of myself, grabbed a coffee, browsed around with what little spare time I had. I wasn't feeling the anxiety of travel. I was just in the moment, enjoying being there.

That paperweight is still on my desk. The quote wasn't wrong. It just assumed you knew what your moon was.

🪷 Nora

P.S. Any Project Hail Mary fans reading this? If not, okay, I'll sit back down…