Being There For Someone Who Is Struggling Is Exhausting, The Ups And Downs And Constant Cycle Of Presence

The scene at Osun Osogbo in Osun State, Nigeria by Adeolu Osibodu (@adeoluosibodu)

Nigeria is the first African team, whether men's or women's, to advance to the Olympic quarterfinals in basketball 🇳🇬✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

I have been lying to myself secretly and now I’m not sure how to move forward

What part of myself likes to ignore reality, what part of myself likes to warp reality, what part of me doesn’t understand reality

It’s like I live in a day dream and the rude awakening’s become increasingly ungracious

Why is it so hard to face reality, to speak my mind, to be brutally honest to myself, why is it so hard.

Maybe it’s the fear, that causes the trembling and the aversion

Maybe I need to become friends with my fear

A friend once said “the ground is shifting under her”

At first I didn’t quite get it but now I think I do.

The ground shifting is when your sense of safety, be it a job, a house or a relationship is unraveling and definite change is inevitable.

And in those moments, where everything seems so unsteady and uncertain, where do we find comfort?

Some say you should embrace the discomfort and I think there is some truth in that, I think it’s also weird so what else? Radical acceptance maybe? Or finding snippets of joy in what you can and hold on for dear life.

I am still figuring it out as my own ground is also shifting

Sometimes it pays to be embarrassed by a romantic partner or prospect for you to start to see clearly if a relationship makes sense or not

Shame can be strong teacher to re asses s situation

Source: kitten.foster.corner

Spinoffs: Space Station Innovations in Your Cart (and Heart!)

You might think NASA technology is just spaceships and telescopes, but did you know the camera in your cell phone is, too? It’s one of many NASA innovations now found everywhere on Earth.

The International Space Station has had crew living on it for 25 years straight. In that time, the space station has enabled a tremendous amount of research, helping NASA and scientists better understand long-term living in space – but it’s not just knowledge coming back down to Earth! Technologies developed for the space station and experiments conducted aboard the orbiting lab also benefit people on the planet below. Here are a few of these inventions, or spinoffs, you can find in your everyday life.

A Sunscreen That Blocks Radiation in Space – and on Your Face

After surviving for 18 months outside the International Space Station, an extremely hardy organism is now improving sunscreens and face cream products from a cosmetics company, which licensed use of the organism from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Build Muscle With or Without Gravity

Muscles atrophy quickly in space, so when astronauts began long stays on the International Space Station, they needed some specialized exercise equipment. A resistance mechanism made of a coiled metal spring formed the basis of the first way for astronauts to “lift weights” in space. Soon after, that same design became the heart of compact home gym equipment.

Fresh Greens Every Day of the Year

The need to grow fresh food in space pushed NASA to develop indoor agriculture techniques. Thanks to the agency’s research, private companies are building on NASA’s vertical farm structure, plant-growth “recipes,” and environmental-control data to create indoor farms, resulting in higher crop yields and better-quality produce while conserving water and energy and eliminating the need for pesticides.

Cultivating Hearts and Knees in Space

Gravity is a significant obstacle to bioprinting cells and growing human tissue on Earth because heavier components settle to the bottoms of petri dishes. In the absence of gravity, each cell layer stays in place, which is how it’s possible to grow heart and knee tissue on the space station. The same principle also allows mixing of complex pharmaceuticals on orbit.

Storing Oodles of Energy

NASA chose nickel-hydrogen batteries to power the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station because the technology is safe, reliable in extreme temperatures, and long-lived. NASA’s improvements brought down the cost of the technology, which is now used by large-scale utilities and renewable power plants that need to store energy generated by intermittent sources.

You can read about many more products sourced from the ISS on spinoff.nasa.gov.

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