The Sky Is Not Yours

A rocket rose into the sky. Six women aboard. But down here on Earth, something very different is happening--and we're not all invited to escape.

I hesitated to write this. Not because the truth escaped me, but because I did not wish to cheapen the labor of the women who rose. I know what it costs to break gravity. I know what it means to carry history on your back.

But there are moments in this country when we are asked—no, expected—to applaud not progress, but the performance of it. And this, I fear, was one of those moments.

A rocket lifted into the sky. Six women aboard. Cameras rolled. The hashtags arrived before the dust had settled.

They called it historic. They called it hope. They told us to look up. But here on Earth, we are not ascending.

We are counting what’s left—of our savings, our dignity, our rights. We are watching students dragged away for speaking, women losing autonomy by the day, families buckling under the weight of policies they did not choose.

We are not invited to escape. We are instructed to endure. And still—they ask us to cheer.

It is a peculiar thing, to witness a machine so brazen in its design it does not bother to hide what it is. A monument to ambition, to wealth, to power. The same structure that once kept women grounded now carries them skyward. And yet—has anything truly changed?

Perhaps, for a moment, those women felt it: the rush of the ascent, the silence of the stars, the defiance of it all. But I wonder if they also felt the distance—between that vessel and the lives lived far below. Between the symbolism of their mission and the substance of our struggle.

It is difficult to read the room when the room you occupy is built to protect you from discomfort. It is nearly impossible to read the planet when you spend your days above the clouds, buffered by money, fame, and curated praise. You forget, after a while, what the air feels like down here.

So no—I am not clapping. I am not moved by the performance of possibility when the foundation beneath us is crumbling. I am not seduced by the illusion of equity when the very architecture remains unchanged.

Progress is not who rises. It is who is allowed to stay standing. And if space is the final frontier, then humility must be the one we left behind.

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