broken molecules

You know, it's an incredible and unlikely story that brings the molecules inside each and every one of us to the point where they are now. Ten billion years ago, superhot, superhuge, and very short-lived stars exploded into supernovas, and where once there were only the two basic elements of helium and hydrogen, every element in the universe, fused from smaller nuclei during the life of the star, was hurled outwards in clouds of dust. And eventually those bits of matter got caught up in larger clouds of matter, and then things like our solar system were formed.

And I'll skip the last five billion years. They're less romantic than you might think.

Which brings us to now. All over the earth, people are deciding that they love one another. These feelings are caused by the reactions of various chemicals and ions in our brains, and the hormones we secrete in an ancient biological search for a mate, and the current amount of warmth and swelling in our genitals. And every bit of it is only possible because heavy elements traveled hundreds of thousands of light years in an expanding universe to where we are today. The pieces of my brain that tell me how much I care about you, were once in the dazzlingly hot core of a giant star as they emerged from the fusion of smaller elements, and might even have been in the same star as the atoms that eventually formed your brain. And every seven years, we shed every atom that was inside us at any given moment.

We are stardust.