I had an embarrassing moment at work. There was nobody around, other than a few tens of technicians and support teams buzzing around the production floor three floors below. In the factory we have a balcony that overlooks the production line for New Glenn. It’s cool. Like, insanely cool. If you ever get an opportunity to visit Rocket Park, you’ll get to experience the awe of looking at gargantuan rocket parts with tiny humans walking around from a birds eye view.

The Overlook, as I’ve taken to calling it, is possibly my favorite places to be when I have nothing better to do. There are chairs, tables, and outlets to charge your phone or laptop, and you’re just a door away from the main break room with everything from Clif bars to bottomless soda and yogurt. Every few weeks I’ll eat lunch there and I often take my midnight breaks there. Hell, I’ll come in on weekends and hang out with my iPad and draw if I get bored with the coffee shop. The Overlook is truly my happy place.

But tonight, while sipping on Coke Zero and staring at the rocket I pour my heart into day in, day out, I cried. Sobbed, even.

I can’t describe the feeling that washed over me. Maybe it was the music I was listening to. Or maybe I broke down because I felt comfortable, vulnerable in the face of a giant. Likely both.

Since starting at Blue I’ve wrestled with massive impostor syndrome. I feel like I don’t belong here. In all honestly I don’t. I’m a college dropout turned graphic designer that was just autistic enough about rockets to be allowed to play with hundreds of thousands of dollars of hardware and get paid doing it. What am I doing working side by side with guys that have worked on fighter jets and satellites? Why do they take the time to help me when I need it? Why do they treat someone like me as their own?

In that moment, I was brought back to one of the only moments of my senior year I remember. I was sitting alone in the yearbook room in late November. We Had Good TImes Together, Don’t Forget That had released weeks prior and let me tell you, that was my shit. Still is. What do you think I’m listening to as I write this? Anyways, back to the story.

At the time I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Nine months prior I got kicked out of my parent’s house, I had about five months left of high school, and I was sleeping on my sister’s living room floor. I was not in a good place in the slightest, and while tucked in a dimly lit corner of an empty classroom listening to Goodbye, I broke. About 45 minutes later, my advisor walked in to find me balled up and sniffling. on the floor. After prying out the reason I was destitute, she told me something I still hold near to my heart: “No matter how you feel, you still manage to do remarkable things. You will always to remarkable things. It’s in your DNA, kid.”

I hate to admit that it’s true. Even when I feel out of place, I’m putting people on the Moon. That’s remarkable. Tonight I think I finally realized that I deserve my spot here. I’ve been doing remarkable things, and I’ll continue to do so, while listening to my cringey sewer music of course.

Maybe it is in my DNA.