Harder, better, faster, stronger.

If there's one word in the English language that inspires more fear, more apprehension and more shame in me than any other, it's this one: wrong.

I've been thinking a lot lately about that word. Wrong. When I was in college (i.e. when my life was pretty well laid out for me), I spent hours and days and weeks of my life fretting and obsessing about the few choices I had to make, completely paralyzed by my indecision because I was afraid I would make the wrong one. Throughout the last year and a half, I've found it nearly impossible to forgive myself for instances in which I was careless with the feelings of people I cared about, in which I was rash and thoughtless, in which I made the wrong choices.

I've heard it said that humankind is capable of only two emotions - love, and fear. The majority of my adult life has unquestionably revolved around the latter. Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that if I made a mistake, no one could possibly love me; and worse, I couldn't possibly love myself. If I didn't make every effort to see that the needs and wants of those around me were satisfied, if I didn't put aside my own desires and feelings - in fact, if I even focused on them long enough to realize what they were and that they could possibly conflict with those of others - I wasn't being a loving friend, or family member, or coworker, or girlfriend. I killed myself to maintain that precarious balance and tend to the needs of everyone I cared about, endlessly berating myself for those that fell by the wayside, trying desperately to hold on to some semblance of control in my own life, and expected that at the end of the day, I would be perfect. I would do everything right, and love everyone, and everyone would love me, and I would love myself.

Well, honey, that's not love. That's fear. Plain and simple.

A few weeks ago, I was having a particularly overwhelming afternoon. Now, when I'm stressed, I tend to just take off. And so I went for a run. I ran until my breath fell into a steady rhythm. I ran until all I could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other. I ran until I felt the endorphins coursing through my blood, and a smile creeping across my face. And suddenly an hour had gone by. It was then that I decided I was going to push myself. I decided to run a half-marathon.

Now, I had never been what you would call a "runner." I'd always preferred to run on a treadmill, with music pounding in my ears and some empty drivel on the television distracting me from the otherwise mind-numbing experience. But somehow, this was different. And since then I've been running exclusively outside, at dawn, with no sound but the beating of my own heart and the scuffing of pavement for company. I can't focus on my past, or my future, or my so-called "mistakes," or what anyone else expects of me. I'm forced to take it breath by breath, trust my instincts, let go of my mind, and listen closely to what my body is telling me. And slowly, I'm picking up the pieces. We've all heard the old cliché - before you can love anyone else, you have to love yourself. And this might be the first time in my life I've ever done something for myself that wasn't based in fear - fear of consequences, or inadequacy, or failure.

They say that if you can run 10 miles, you can run 13.1. This weekend, I'm on track to do just that. Easily. Something I never thought I could do. I'm proud of myself. And while it's not forgiveness, it's a start. Love, like life, is an endurance sport. And I'm working on it. One step at a time.

twelve months.

Tomorrow marks one year since the day I left for Colorado, and two years since the day I graduated from college. Funny how time flies. As the days get longer and the air gets warmer, I find myself becoming increasingly nostalgic for last summer: the gorgeous, sunny day hikes through green meadows filled with wildflowers, the lazy mornings spent floating around on pool rafts, baking in the 100-degree sunshine, the late nights spent in downtown bars, searching for nothing but an innocent good time with a girlfriend or two (though occasionally finding more than we bargained for). Eventually those thoughts give way to memories of the fall: of finally sharing my amazing world with friends and family from home, of trekking over the Rocky Mountains at 12,000 feet, endlessly in awe of the stark contrast between the vibrant yellows of the autumn aspens and the crisp blue of the alpine sky, of learning important life lessons from unfamiliar back woods and the unspeakably haunting, howling wind. After that, it gets muddy. Next thing I know, I'm back in Rhode Island. And a minute later, my life is completely different from what I had imagined and I'm about as comfortable as I would be had I never left. Let's back up.

I'm pretty sure I've said that Colorado changed me about as many times as one can say something without being labeled with a memory disorder. But to a certain extent, it's true. If nothing else, it changed my values. I remember listening to a speaker at the Science Writers conference in November and being struck by the realization that I had always cared about ideas more than people. For the majority of my adult life, I had been far more interested in learning about abstract concepts than I had been in interacting with my fellow man. But sometime between that trip and the time I moved back to New England, all of that changed. At some point, I stopped living my life in my head, and I started living it with my heart. I think it happened over Thanksgiving. Despite my history of running off on my own, I had never felt that kind of profound loneliness before. For the first time, I realized that I needed people. And slowly but surely, my urgent desire to belong to the world has blossomed into a quiet sense of clarity that I've never felt before.

There are days when I miss Colorado a lot. I miss my friends and the sunshine and the mountains. But I haven't once regretted my decision to come back to Rhode Island. Despite the frequent dreary weather, the distinct dearth of open space or elevation, the cranky people, the crappy roads, the constant rush and congestion... it's home. I felt relieved the minute I crossed the state line. I'm going to be honest, it has been a challenging couple of months. Hell, it has been a challenging year. But I worked it out. I accomplished everything I wanted to. I'm happy. And I'm ready for yet another fantastic summer.

On being here now.

I've been destination-oriented for as long as I can remember. As much as I loved theatre when I was younger, I never liked rehearsing very much; it was the final performance that always drove me. In high school, I spent my time taking pictures of everyone and everything so I'd have the memories to look back on, rather than focusing on enjoying the experience in the moment. I looked forward to my college exams more than I did classes. I watch movies to have watched them and I read books to have read them. Sometimes I even find myself wanting good things to end simply for the relief of being on the other side of the pain that will ensue when they do.

I know a number of people right now who are undergoing transitions. Some are just a little confused, and some are on the brink of quarter-life crises. Yesterday, a few friends and I were lamenting the fact that we're spending the prime years of our lives consumed by concern over our futures. Personally, I know I've always been in a hurry to grow up because I crave stability. I'm terribly impatient, I despise failing, and I can't stand feeling like life is out of my control. But what's funny about all of those things - and what I'm only now starting to realize - is that all of this evolving is the fun part. Now, somebody once told me that I concentrate so much on purpose that I don't know how to have fun. That comment bothered me for years but, to be honest, in a way I think he was right. And I don't think I'm alone. So many of us are so focused on tomorrow that sometimes we forget to live right now. And the truth of the matter is that we'll never be younger than we are today.

Of course you need to plan for the future. But only until it starts to detract from your present. The answers will come when you're ready for them. I spent years and years hoping to control circumstance by sheer willpower alone, thinking and rethinking my big life choices until I was blue in the face. But it wasn't until I became very still - until I sat on a train quietly observing the world as it flew by my window, until I heard the pounding of music in my ears and felt the wind racing through my hair, rolling down a hill on my bike - that everything seemed to fall into place. I still feel jealous when I encounter people who seem to have their entire lives figured out, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself anymore. I'm trying to step out of my own way so I can be the one place I need to be: here, now. And so far, it's going swimmingly.

wherever you go, there you are... or are you?

I've been thinking a lot lately about change. I am not who I was ten years ago. Nor am I who I was last year, or last month, or even yesterday. Everyone evolves - friends, family members, acquaintances, people we aren't terribly fond of. It's a fact of life, but it isn't one that we tend to focus a whole lot of energy on. We all care deeply about some people and hold grudges against others without regard for the amount of time that has passed since our feelings arose. But why? Mentally speaking, they have changed. Physically speaking, they don't even possess the same body they did so many days or months or years ago. When you really think about it, such a continuity problem becomes a complicated issue in terms of both love and accountability.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine recommended that I read Milan Kundera's short novel Identity. In it, Kundera tells the story of Jean-Marc, a young Frenchman who becomes consumed by the fear that time will change his lover Chantal into a woman he no longer recognizes. And why shouldn't he? In a world where such change often happens imperceptibly, is it even reasonable to believe that two people can spend 10 or 20 or 50 years together without growing apart or eventually encountering some kind of insurmountable obstacle?

In one of my college courses, we conducted the following thought experiment: a ship goes off on a long voyage. While at sea, boards crack, pipes break, and one by one each component is replaced with a new part. When the ship finally returns, every piece of it is brand new. So is it still the same ship? What if, instead of discarding the old parts, each was gradually assembled into a second ship? Both ships return to port - now, which is the one that left? Personally, I'm inclined to assign identity based on some form of continuous memory; that is, the ship with all the new parts is the one that originally left.

But what about in criminal cases? Yesterday, the New York Times published an interesting article arguing in favor of lessening the punishments for juvenile murderers. The author cites factors such as peer pressure, impulsivity and immaturity as reasons to prohibit severe sentences in juveniles. When it comes to accountability, identity becomes a sticky issue. Releasing a 25-year old murderer is still releasing a murderer, even if he was only 14 when he committed the crime. But at the same time, so much of our growth as human beings occurs during our adolescent years. Is it fair, then, to lock him up for the rest of his life based on a crime he committed when he was barely old enough to know what it meant? I don't think so.

Then again, where do you draw the line? If a young girl kills someone the day before her 15th birthday, should her sentence be any more lenient than that of the young man who commits murder the day after his? What about a 17 year old vs. an 18 year old? I suspect that it's less about age than maturity in these cases, but it is extremely difficult to quantify maturity and even moreso to diagram the grand ways in which an individual has changed since the fateful day that shaped the rest of his or her life.

The famed Greek philosopher Heraclitus once claimed, "change is the only constant"; still, it would seem that our society makes very few provisions for evolution. So how do you make sense of your own continuity of experience? How do you pass fair judgement on the people in your life? What do you place your faith in? I have no idea, but I think it's all worth a thought or two.

sea level

I drove to the beach in an effort to find some clarity. The chilly salt air stung, and I retreated as far as I could into my winter coat, a lone huddled mass on the long stretch of concrete. As I bundled up against the cold and spitting rain, I watched the ocean. The same old waves crested and fell again and again, one after the other, displaying at once their strength and transience. The water haphazardly lapped at the grimy and windwhipped rocks below my dangling feet. Beneath the threatening sky and relentless wind, the ocean seemed tired. I felt I could relate.

Ten months ago, I moved to Colorado with grand aspirations. I was going to start over. I was going to figure out who I was. I was going to prove to myself that I still had the social stamina and emotional wherewithall to confront a set of completely alien surroundings and transform them into a place that I could call home. But I didn't count on longing for the ocean. I didn't count on desperately missing my friends and family. And I certainly didn't count on my career sending me right back the way I came. So I decided to pack everything up, drive 3000 miles across the country and dump myself right back into a life that less than a year ago, I left behind for some very good reasons.

Surprisingly enough, not much has changed for me in Rhode Island. Despite filling my time almost to excess, I've been feeling insecure and anxious and alone. I've been questioning whether I actually accomplished any of the goals I had for myself in Colorado. I've been blaming myself inside and out for choices and judgements that are out of my control, and I've found myself wrung out, exhausted, and feeling hauntingly close to the way I did a year ago. Bla bla bla.

And you know, for a while there I thought that I messed up. I thought that it meant I didn't trust myself any more than I did last May. I thought it meant that all the time I spent out west was a complete wash. But I was wrong. The fact is, I did change. I stopped being the person I thought everyone wanted me to be, and I embraced the qualities that make me who I really am. In fact, I think I'm confused and hurt and overwhelmed precisely because I've learned to be true to myself. I think more than is necessary, and I'm openhearted to a fault. For me, there are only two choices: I throw myself 100% into something, or I don't do it. That goes for my career aspirations, my personal relationships, and everything else. Call it what you will, but it's the most authentic way I know how to live.

The fact of the matter is, I know who I want to be. And even if I don't act like that person every minute of every day, even if I make a misstep here and there, it doesn't mean that I've failed. It just means that I'm not dead yet. I'm growing. I'm moving forward. And regardless of everything I'm feeling in this moment, that is something to be proud of.

Vanessa, a history.

Write a narrative about your life. This should include information about your accomplishments, family, educational experience, and outside activities. Be creative rather than philosophic. Remember that you are writing for a reader who knows nothing about you or your background. (1,000 words maximum)

Let’s build a time machine. We’re going to go back twenty-three years, to a muggy Memorial Day weekend in 1987. I wasted no time being born; I was out like a shot, ready to explore the world, and I have been growing, impatiently, ever since.

My parents divorced when I was very young. I grew up living with my mother, who steadfastly supported my every step and instilled in me a love of learning and a passion for creativity. As a kid, I sang, I danced, I drew and painted. I wrote plays, short stories and comic strips. I completed my homework diligently and requested extra credit assignments with the kind of enthusiasm that one could only expect from a little girl with stringy hair and enormous coke-bottle glasses. Yes, I was a nerd. I can’t remember whether I knew it at the time, but if I did, I showed no signs of caring. While my best friend decided to ration her time between playing with me and wooing the popular kids, I spent my recess hours creating the perfect scrapbook page on which to display my winning ribbon from the 5th grade science fair.

I have always been a good student, but eventually my love of school gave way to a love of theatre. For eight years, I spent my summers rehearsing for musical theatre productions. Once I reached high school, I spent the academic year in much the same fashion. I played ensemble parts, supporting characters and leading roles. I embodied the dark, moody spirit of the true Grimm fairytales as Little Red in Into the Woods. I portrayed an impassioned young woman with fiercely loyal gang aspirations as Anybodys in West Side Story and a poor Jewish bride fighting archaic traditions and the rising tide of prejudice as Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof. I understudied the gregarious Reno Sweeny in Anything Goes and, in an unexpected turn of events, deftly took to the stage on the night of our very last rehearsal. I managed to perfect the precarious act of balancing my theatrical endeavors with my studies and graduated fifth in my class with a degree from the prestigious International Baccalaureate program in hand.

A few short months later, I was off to the big city. After years of excelling in my English classes and harboring a deep-set love of writing, I had decided that a career in broadcast journalism would be perfect for me. I excitedly began my studies at Emerson College, and was promptly dismayed to discover that I had seriously underestimated my love of the sciences. No more amino acids or cellular pathways or vascular systems? No more valence electrons or resonance structures or hydrogen bonds? No more magnetic fields or gravitational interactions or protons? I could have cried.

Instead, I transferred to Wheaton College and took up a major in Physics and Astronomy and a minor in Biology. I thought that would fix matters. And it did, for a time. I found my creative niche in The Blend, Wheaton’s only co-ed a capella group. I joined the Physics Club and played an active part in fundraising and event planning. I delved deeper into the physical sciences than I ever thought possible. I spent a semester studying biology in Australia and returned older, wiser and more sunburnt. During my senior year, I made the trek to Rhode Island twice a week to attend an EMT certification class in an effort to get a better sense of how science is practically applied. I graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a job offer from an ambulance company in my hometown. I was ecstatic. I had everything figured out.

Of course, life is never quite that easy. There was something amiss in my plan and, deep down, I knew it. While working as an EMT, I spent my downtime reading articles about health and astrophysics in newspapers, blogs, magazines, and anything else I could get my hands on. I missed the classroom desperately, but after spending a college summer in academia, I knew that research wasn’t for me. There was simply too much interesting science to learn about. On a whim, I decided to move halfway across the country to Colorado to gain some perspective.

A few weeks after my big move, I had an epiphany. I had just returned from a long hike. I hadn’t quite adjusted to the high altitude, and the blazing summer sun and ever-present haze of black flies had made my climb all the more challenging. Exhausted, I sat down at my computer and began surfing my usual haunts. As I scrolled along, silently cursing the scientific illiteracy of so many journalists, it suddenly occurred to me that I could do a much better job. I could easily explain the mechanics of a black hole or the physiology of the human heart to the general public. In fact, I had been doing it for years. At Emerson, I had detailed the physics of time travel to a classroom full of actors and poets. At Wheaton, I had elaborated on the emergency treatment of eviscerated tissues to a table full of music students and social scientists. I get laypeople excited about science; that’s my thing.

These days I run Cosmodynamics, a science blog that has received hits from every corner of the globe. By day, I pay the bills. By night, I read and learn, edit and educate. It’s a great life. Even now, lightyears away from the geeky little girl I once was, I still wouldn’t have it any other way. In the end, some things just don’t change.

***

TL;DR version: Dear Boston University, Please accept me. Love, Vanessa

But I've begun to trust the view here.

I've had a great couple of weeks. A little over a week ago, Liz and I went to see the Weepies in concert. It was quite possibly the best concert I've ever been to. Arguably even better than Gaga, but then again, that would be like comparing apples with oranges. Outrageous sparkly oranges with claws. A few days later I had a day off from work and decided to take a drive, just me and the D50. I didn't end up taking all that many pictures. Instead, I drove around the mountains for about six hours, just taking it all in. I ended up in Nederland at a cozy back-country bar, hanging out with Liz and Paul and considering the merits of my life here. Two days later, I was potentially offered a promotion at work. There is a very good chance that if I want it, the job is mine.

Add that to the mix, and it's obvious that I've been having a lot of feelings lately. For those of you who know me well, you know that I hate feelings. I've always been resistant to change, and I think that is half the battle in the decision I'm trying to make here. Staying here much longer is going to change me - in fact, it already has - and that's scary. But when I compare my life now to the way it could have been had I stayed in Rhode Island, or the way it could be if I moved back to Boston, I realize that this may be exactly what I want, but never believed or expected. Being so far away from 90% of the people I know is very hard. Being in a place where I can't seem to do what I ultimately want to do in terms of a career is hard. Letting go of my past and my concrete expectations for my future is hard. It's always hard, and it always will be hard, wherever I am. I'm going to see how I feel when I'm in New Haven this weekend, but right now I'm feeling like I might want to stay after all, at least until May. I have a place to live here, and a pretty good job where I'm making enough money to survive and a potential promotion in the near future, all of which is more than I could say for a life I might create back east. Yes, I may end up leaving in a few months, but I don't necessarily have to worry about that now. I can quit making things so hard for myself. Yes, I'm tired of getting up and moving all the time, but I'm even more tired of not allowing myself to be happy.

In fact, I'm going to try something novel. I'm going to try to stop planning my life out, resisting every change that comes my way. I'm at a point in my life where it's becoming less necessary anyway. I'm going to let myself be "here" right now, wherever "here" might be, rather than worrying about being somewhere else. I might change my mind this weekend, or next week, or next month or next year, but right now all I have to do is ride my bike home, enjoy the sun on my back and the crisp mountain air on my face, take a deep breath, and relax. It's so simple, and I'm very silly not to recognize that.

They've got the urge for going, and they've got the wings so they can go.

I've been awake since about 3:30 listening to the wind howling outside. I've never heard anything like it. I guess winter is just about here. And its arrival has me thinking about where I need to be.



When I decided to move here a year and a half ago, it was because I thought I might want to be a physician assistant. I figured I would establish residency here, take some classes, and eventually apply to grad school down at CU's medical campus in Denver. That plan persisted until the beginning of this year, when I realized that it might not be the path I want to pursue after all. I was no longer sure that moving halfway across the country was such a good idea. I did it anyway. Fast forward a few months, and my goals have changed completely. Does that necessarily change things? No. But let me rephrase - knowing me, does that change things? Yes. Possibly.

I'll cut to the chase. If I'm going to be successful in science journalism, I'm going to need to be on the east coast for much of the foreseeable future. Until I establish myself in the field, I'm going to be tied to one of a handful of locales that actually offer jobs. That means Boston. That means leaving here. If not sooner, then later. Should that matter? No, not really. But at this point, I've been "leaving" every few months for the last five years. I'm tired of it and I'm ready to settle somewhere.

Here's the problem: I love it here. I'm getting comfortable. Colorado is really beginning to feel more like home. If moving back east is really in my future... well, I know myself and that is a recipe for disaster. I'm better off getting out now, while it won't hurt so much. I can't do what I did in Rhode Island again. I can't uproot myself once I've settled in. So as I see it, I have three options:

1. Suck it up. Enjoy the time I have left here, and leave knowing that I made the most of it. It's probably the most sensible option, but it wouldn't happen without a huge amount of heartache down the road and I just don't think I want to put myself through that again.

2. Move back east after Christmas. Live and work in Boston, try to find some sort of writing internship and hope for the best when I hear back from MIT and BU in April. Allow myself to settle down for once without any plan to get up and leave.

3. Let myself get comfortable here with no plan to leave. That probably means letting go of the science writing thing and reverting back to my original goal. Deal with the consolation prize of living in a beautiful, amazing place, oust my inner New Englander and let Colorado take over.

I'm going to be at Yale for the National Association of Science Writers' conference from November 5-8. I'm hoping that I'll come back from that weekend with some clarity. Until then, I'm working on not being so clueless.

on melody and memory.

This morning, Pandora decided to play me a song that I hadn't heard in quite a while, a song that was part of a CD that I happened to purchase during a whiny and particularly crap period of my life. At the time I felt like hell, and while I wouldn't consider this album to be "emo" by any standards, I found it inspiring. I mean, whatever. We all have our moments, right?

The odd thing about this experience, though, was that the song made me smile. Not because I'm a different person now, or because I'm happier today than I was back then, or because it was one of my favorite songs at the time, regardless of ambient circumstance. No, this particular song made me smile precisely because it put me right back in that place. It was a romantic walk back through a bitterness that I can only now fully appreciate. Don't get me wrong - my smile had absolutely nothing to do with what I learned from my mistakes, or the clarity with which I can now reflect on the situation. It was simple, sweet nostalgia for my own overwhelming (and probably overblown) angst.

This has happened to me more times than I can count; a piece of music rolls through me, leaving swells of adversity in its wake, inevitably culminating in a kind of tragic happiness. And it got me thinking about the power of memory. I can only assume that my own troublesome feelings about the past lose their potency as a kind of self-preservation. So that the narrative remains fact, but the feelings become more like fiction, vague flashes of moments that I can rewrite and fill in on a whim.

Does this happen to anyone else? Maybe not. Is any of this rational? Maybe not. Maybe I'm a control freak who desperately needs to be in charge of her own history. Or maybe I'm just obsessed with the fullness of feeling. Either way, it's a response I wouldn't give up for the world.

Three months.

What a fantastic couple of weeks. To start with, Sheida arrived two weeks ago. Some highlights from the five days that followed: spending hours upon hours perusing books downtown, running at the reservoir, belly dancing, racing tricycles around one of Boulder's best dive bars, hiking in the mountains around Mitchell Lake up in Ward, building an evening campfire in Nederland, staring up at millions of stars and having deep conversations about our futures, seeing Hubble at the IMAX in Denver, surprise salsa dancing, filming yet another original movie (which can be viewed here, for the curious), tooling around Pearl Street, and of course, eating lots and lots of delicious food.

After she left, I had about a day and a half to breathe. Then my dad arrived. Drove up to Ward again, this time to hike the Isabelle Glacier trail around Long Lake. Incredible. He was nice enough to have my ailing car repaired, so we spent one day exploring Pearl Street and the rest of downtown on foot, poking in and out of shops, bookstores, the beautiful library, and of course, restaurants. We visited the Museum of Science in Denver, saw Hubble (yes, again) and a planetarium show, and drove up to Nederland to watch the spectacularly clear Perseid meteor shower. Another day, we went hiking at Chatauqua Park and stumbled upon one of the most incredible natural phenomena I've ever seen: the Royal Arch. It's an enormous stone archway that frames an amazing panorama of Boulder, the Flatirons, and the rest of the Front Range. The trail made for a fairly taxing hike, but in the end, it was so worth it. Spending so much time with my dad was certainly something new, but it was really great to reconnect. I know he wasn't thrilled about returning to Rhode Island. Both he and Sheida seemed to really love it here. But... let's be honest, it's hard not to.


(here's why.)

Now I have a couple of weeks to regroup and relax before my next series of visitors arrive. I really love having people come out here, but it will be nice to have some time to process everything that has been going on. Apparently life doesn't stop while you're busy entertaining other people... who knew? I'm currently in the midst of starting my applications for grad school. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm incredibly excited, but I'm also a bit overwhelmed too. Not that it's a bad "overwhelmed". In fact, it's the same kind of "overwhelmed" I felt last spring when everything suddenly aligned to push me out here. I'm not terribly high on the idea of having to move back east, but I finally feel like I'm on the right path. Honestly, that's worth all the flat topography in the world. What's funny is that professional contacts have kind of just been falling into my lap lately. It will never stop amusing me, how things just seem to work out sometimes.