I am sad

I haven't been posting much lately, but I feel like I have to say something.

In my little bio on the side bar it says that I stopped writing at 17 to pursue my dream of doing science.

It's not true.

It should say: "At the tender age of 17, I was completely convinced I needed to go to the moon. I had read all the Life magazine profiles of the Apollo astronauts, and more than anything I wanted to get my hands on a rock from the moon. I wanted to stand on that world and gaze back at the Earth--finally quiet--and contemplate the vastness of existence. To that end, I picked up a career in science because even I knew I'd make a crummy test pilot (Ummm, yeah, so no one's flown it yet? why don't you have one of those other guys give it a shot firs...). I assembled models, comparing to images to make sure they were accurate. I researched the application for astronaut training, and I even went to space camp to make sure I had the best chance ever of getting in."

In that pursuit, I read The Right Stuff, and figured out what it meant to be a steely eyed missile man. I watched the movie The Right Stuff, and that was my first introduction to the Planets by Holst (seriously awesome, and they used Jupiter a lot). But something happened today that I never anticipated in all my dreaming of joining up to shake the bounds of our gravity well:

Neil Armstrong has died.

I doubt I'm breaking this news to anyone, but I'm... well, I'm heartbroken. It seems only logical. I mean he was 82. Sally Ride was only in her sixties. That was shocking. But this? I just don't know what to say. And so close to the death of Sally, my other great hero, it's hard to process. How can all of these people whose mere existence changed the course of my life be dying?  It's like they were somehow the embodiment of my dreams. I guess that's why it feels like my dreams are dying.

I am sad.