When I was younger, on a quiet day while I was meant to be napping (and my mom had taken my sisters to the grocery store), I heard the television turn on in the next room and the muffled end of a dramatic speech:

“...to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Curious, I ventured into the living room, sitting next to my father on the couch. His eyes were transfixed by the screen, watching James T. Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew fight against the show’s villain of the week. He quickly explained the plot of the episode when I asked, and told me that he had been watching this show since he was a kid.

Since that day, I’ve loved Star Trek more than I can put into words. Growing up, my father and I didn’t really connect—not for lack of trying on either of our parts, though. With how much time he spent at work, I was lucky if I saw him more than four hours a week, which were not ideal conditions for bonding. This lack of connection hurt me, but once my family moved from our small hometown to a major city, his hours at home decreased even more. The fractured state of our relationship seemed to grow into an insurmountable obstacle.

My dad was an unknown element, a person in my house that I knew next to nothing about. This wasn’t an easily rectified situation—whenever my dad was home, bonding time and individual relationship-building were almost never on the table. I have two sisters, and his sole attention at the time was an extremely hot commodity; more popular than Beyblades, more coveted than Silly Bandz. The situation seemed almost hopeless, like I’d never really get to know my father. But on that day, I sat down next to him, watched Star Trek, and everything changed. 

That was the first of many days spent sitting together on the couch, watching the series, the movies, and once they came out, the Kelvin Timeline movies. My sisters didn’t like Star Trek (my younger sister was indifferent, and my older sister likes Star Wars...because she has no taste), and more often than not preferred to play with my mother when the show was on. These impromptu bonding sessions began to mean a lot more to me than just watching my favorite show with my dad. I now had designated time I could spend with him, where it was just him and I. No younger sister demanding juice or snacks or a guardian so she could play outside. No older sister garnering the room’s attention or asking for help with homework. Just my dad and I, sitting on the couch, happy.

If I hadn’t woken up that day, if I hadn’t watched Star Trek with my father, if I hadn’t discovered a way to connect with him, I have no idea what kind of person I’d be today. Would I still love space so much that I’d keep a 1.5 billion pixel picture of the Andromeda Galaxy saved in my camera roll? Would I have fallen in love with science as suddenly and surely as I did at five years old? Would my father and I have found something else to bond over, or would we forever be worlds apart in the same home, physically close but emotionally distant? Amidst these questions, there is one thing I am certain of: Star Trek has changed my life for the better, and inspired in me a love of the unknown so tangible that I plan to spend the rest of my life boldly going where no man has gone before.