Why I Dumped My First Love (Blog Competition 2025 Round 1 Winner)

Updated: 11.08.2025

Read time: 2 min read

Dear Space,
we need to talk.

I’ve loved you since grade 3. We met during a solar system unit, and I was head over heels. I made a Milky Way model with glow-in-the-dark stars, and thought, this is the one. You were big, mysterious, and so complicated, making me feel good about myself. I planned my life around you: science fairs, asteroid hunts, ARISS programs, documentaries. I told everyone I’d be an astrophysicist. I convinced myself I would be.

But I wasn’t willing to face reality. I was terrified of letting you go. My bane of existence for the last 8 years. Even with the bitter truth in my hands; limited career paths, years of lonely research, dark rooms, toxic love, and not the kind of impact I craved to create, I shut it all out, unwilling to let you go.

The real crack in our relationship came when I started exploring things that actually warmed my heart, made me feel loved. I launched Food for Needy, started Cook and Serve, built GreenCycle, and went to frigging Antarctica to witness climate change firsthand. For the first time in so long, I wasn’t thinking about you, not about blackholes or the viability of string theory. I was thinking about food insecurity, broken systems, sustainability, and people who couldn’t afford to wait for long-term theories to achieve success, just like us.

I didn’t just outgrow us. I found something I care about more.

That hurt to admit. For years, you were my everything. Walking away from you felt like failure, the biggest heartbreak of my life. But how long could I keep pretending, just to avoid disappointing my 8-year-old self? That’s toxic.

And no, I don’t think I could ever get “over” you. Maybe one day I’ll work on space sustainability or clean satellite systems. Maybe. Hopefully we will cross paths again.

But for now, I’ve got work to do here. Real systems to fix. Real people to serve.

This isn’t the end.
Love,
Me.