The price for getting to travel the world is steeper than you may wish to pay.  And it’s not just measured in dollars.

This episode was excruciatingly hard for us to put together.  It took everything I had emotionally to keep watching Rob’s confessions over and over again, and I’ve been dreading the impact it will have on him when he has to relive those experiences while watching the episode.  Never before have I been faced with real moral and emotional consequence in my line of work, and the process has been a bittersweet.

When I took on the job of primary editor/producer for JS0 it was a mostly carefree decision.  I was basically unattached to the world and had some money saved away so I could take whatever job I wanted at the time.  I chose to tell the story of 4 people having an adventure because it sounded like fun, but in the course of working with them over the past 6 months the experience has turned into something far more complex.  Not only are we all friends now (though I’ve never even met some of the team in person), but the story is getting more and more serious, and the act of retelling it is having a greater impact on my life.

This episode especially: I’m still recovering from a relationship that ended almost a year ago.  More accurately I’m not recovering from it, and hearing the numerous parallel’s with Rob’s situation has been stirring my demons.  The unique challenges of editing very painful material concerning a friend’s life, the events of which remind you horrifically of your own, has made the past two weeks completely surreal.

Wherever he is, I hope Rob is finding some closure right now: for both our sakes.

Over the course of our relationship and marriage, Sonya and I have spent a lot of time apart. We met during my last year of college, when she was still a junior. Shortly after we began dating, we weathered 3 distant months as she lived and studied in Madagascar. Our communication during this time consisted of daily letters, which arrived months after they were sent, and a once-monthly, twenty-minute phone call. I could have overcome the distance though, had it not been for the sky.

At any given time, I realized, neither the sun nor the moon could shine on me and her at the same time. Moreover, she was so far from me that she didn’t even look up at the same stars that I did. Where I saw the Northern Crown, she saw the Southern Cross. I was awake while she was sleeping.

Those three months tested our commitment, and eventually led to a year in which she was finishing college and I was starting grad school. We lived apart, but made it work, and half-way through, married.

Vietnam is only half a world away, and while 12 hours separate us,  we will both see the Big and Little Dipper in the sky at night. Thanks to the infrastructure we will require for production, our phone calls can be much more frequent and last longer than the time-delayed frustration of Madagascar. The wonders of this project will bring my every experience to her instantaneously.

But the filaments that connect viewers with our experiences cannot, no matter how thick, wholly bridge the distance that lies between. Phone calls can only connect my day to her night. Cold stars are small comfort for warm needs.