Tenth Gate [Video]

[forsometimenow]

Who: Jennifer Keller and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: N/A
When: Now

A year, huh... [Jennifer looks distant and sounds a little sad.] How... [She hesitates.] If you've been here for a while, what kinds of things do you do to cope when you're really, really missing home? Because I've been thinking about my friends back home a lot lately, and having been the only person from my world here this entire time... [She trails off, and decides to just wait for responses.]

Comments

[dancingmd]

[She smiles.]

I don't think it's space that worries him. He grew up on Starships after all.

[forsometimenow]

True- I keep forgetting that space travel was the norm for you all. I never rode on a spaceship until I was an adult.

[dancingmd]

And I keep forgetting I'm the odd one out here. It's easy to forget, now that we all live in space, that most people here don't have that at home. Even people who aren't in Starfleet take Starships like you would... airplanes and trains, I suppose. They go on vacation, visit relatives in other star systems, that sort of thing.

[forsometimenow]

Man, that sounds like a lot of fun, though. The ships we DO have back home are usually used either for combat or for our scientific investigations... not very often for leisure.

[dancingmd]

[She nods.] It was that way in the beginning for us too. I'm sure as space travel becomes less difficult, more civilians will be using it as well.

[forsometimenow]

I can see that happening in my lifetime, definitely. And I'm kind of excited for it to happen. Leaving home, leaving Earth... it expanded my horizons. I feel like I've actually LIVED now.

[dancingmd]

[She laughs.]

Soon you won't even want to stay in the same place for very long. It's like an itch that won't go away.

[forsometimenow]

I'm already feeling that here, believe me. I never thought I would, since I was such a homebody growing up. I didn't even go out of state for college.

[dancingmd]

What made you decide to join the Stargate program then?

[forsometimenow]

Well, they started courting me while I was still in school after hearing about my academic prowess, though they were very vague and made it sound like I'd end up in Iraq or Afghanistan or someplace like that where I'd be out of contact for long periods of time. I was initially going to say "no", but... my dad and I had a long talk about it, and he told me he understood my hesitation, but he also felt like it would be a great challenge to face. And I've always been about bettering myself. Of course, I never expected I'd be head of the medical department so soon... but even if I wasn't, I would have stayed.

[dancingmd]

Your father sounds like a wise man.

[She smiles and takes Jennifer's hand across the table.]

I'm glad you found a place like that, a place that could challenge you, people that could challenge you.

[forsometimenow]

[Jennifer smiled shyly and squeezed her friend's hand back.]

He is. He's never steered me wrong before.

[She nodded.]

And the longer I'm there, the more I feel like it was meant to be.

[dancingmd]

Gives you perspective, doesn’t it? Sometimes we don’t realize how much we belong somewhere until we leave it.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah... hindsight being 20/20 and all. It just makes me miss home all the more, even though I try not to dwell on it.

[dancingmd]

[She nods.]

It's hard though, on days like today.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah. I figure on days like today, it's best to just let myself feel it and remind myself that it's normal and okay. I'm sure most of us miss home from time to time.

[dancingmd]

No you're definitely not alone in that. Ignoring the homesickness won't make it disappear so sometimes it is better to acknowledge it.