2012

What. a. year.

It's been an incredibly amazing year. Filled with heartbreaks, milestones, excitements, surprises. Victories and tragedies. Scraped knees and spreading wings. The best kind of year, you know, one that you make it through.

I'm sort of at a loss of how to process this whole year. I feel like I'm at an amazing place in my life. Equal parts confident and anxious.

For the past few months I've been having this recurring dream where I'm flying. It's so realistic. I can take these running jumps and I just float on. There's no other way to say it, but it feels so real. And I wake up still with the thought that maybe, just maybe if I took a jump I could fly.

I told my uncle Max about this on our family vacation (more on that later!), and he said he's not one for dream interpretations, but flying in dreams is one of those irrefutable signs of confidence. He said that he remembered having flying dreams when he was my age. Twenty to twenty-five, he laughs, but not anymore!

For the first time I really feel like I have the world at my fingertips. My future seems so tangible. I'm imagining myself in five years in a way that I never did previously. (More on that later...but I never imagined Lena at five. Now I'm imagining her and us five years from now, ten even.)

I have some right to be confident, I've heard back from a few grad schools, all of which I've got interviews for in Jan-Feb. Since then I've had equal parts flying and anxiety dreams. (One the interview coordinator for Duke dies, and my email doesn't go through so I don't get any faculty to interview. I actually woke up and was very worried that my dreams killed this poor woman.)

L is going to be five within the month. Five. I want to shout this from the rooftops and freak out because five!!!!!!!!! 

And 2013 holds some exciting things for us. Kindergarten, grad school. Maybe moving to a new city or state even. I'm looking forward, but this doesn't mean I'm any less thankful for the past.

2012. At the beginning I never would have guessed it would have turned out this great. But it did! Funny how that happens, ain't it?

Not many words

I don't have many words after the unspeakable tragedy that occurred on Friday. Simply--my thoughts and prayers are with the families, the community of Newtown, and parents children everywhere.

I actually don't even know how to process what occurred. Since watching the internet-news nonstop on Friday, I've stayed away from any other form of media. I haven't listened to the radio, turned on the tv, or even opened a newspaper.

The selfish, selfish part of me is so thankful that Lena is too young to comprehend, too young to hear about what's going on. I don't know how to explain this to her. I don't...even know what there is to explain. Senseless violence? Fear?

This weekend has found me more centered on her, and us. There's been more snuggling, more books being read. More excuses to touch and hug.

It's weird (weird! my choice of words!) that tragedies can be simultaneously so far-reaching but then so myopic. In the wake of this massacre (massacre..) I can think only of myself and my daughter. I...I can't imagine what it must be like for the families that lost their children (children!) to wake up in the morning without them. Again. And again.

There are so many mornings ahead of us, so much mourning.

Friends, I'm thinking of you all too. Be well. Peace.

At a memorial

I went to the memorial service for Larysa Pevny yesterday.

There was this great overarching theme there, that is, what is one's life's work. This was an ode to a life, but also an ode to science, and what's valued in science is what's valued in life--passion, creativity, service. That we can only tell the story we know. And that's what you want, really, you want your life to reflect your science, and vice versa.

Describe yourself, then describe what kind of science you want to do. Graceful, exciting, strong. Methodical, robust, creative. This is what it is to live, and this is what it is to do science. If you are lucky, it is one in the same.

**

Can I rewrite my grad admissions essay after this? Because I really know Why I Want To Be A Scientist (v. 3.0). I want someone to ask me about work-life balance, because I have my answer. There isn't one. And this isn't to say that my work is my life, it's not. I want my life to be my body of work. I want to be remembered for who I am and what I've done, and that's how I want to live.

**

You know what a great way to get over an ex is? This is going to sound super morbid, but here it is--pretend that they are dead, and write them a eulogy. Seriously. You know, in eulogies you always remember the good stuff and forget the rest. Then because they're dead (you killed them!) it's not like you can wish you were back together. Then you imagine yourself giving the eulogy at their funeral, and all of your friends and mutual friends and family are there, and they all say oh how strong you are, and what a good person you are and how hard it was that you lost so and so but you're so strong for going on--and then you bury them. And then all that's left is this place in your heart where you know you did the right thing, and there's no turning back. So convenient. (Also, you have a ready made eulogy if they really do die. Too soon?)

**

At a memorial

Note to self: take more candids.
Smile more.

Find a better way to say this, but--
spend less time on things that don't matter.