Today I sit here, knowing that in a week I will be going to bed to rest well before the first day of my senior year of high school. And I'm terrified.
Today I sit here, knowing that in a little under two weeks, I will be watching my sister going to college, moving out of the house, away from me. And I'm crushed.
Today I sit here, knowing that in a mere year, I will be the one moving into the dorm room, registering for my first semester of classes, living on my own, responsible for myself. And I panic. My heart races, and I'm more scared than I have ever been of anything in my entire life.
Most teenagers enter their senior year unable to wait for the last bell on their last day of school. I will enter dreading the passing of each week, each day that pushes me closer to that pivotal moment in my life where I will begin to decide upon a future for myself, what will define me for the rest of my life. I will become an adult, will take on responsibility for all aspects of my life, will graduate college, get a job, get married, have children, have grandchildren. Each of these things excites me beyond belief, but equal to the excitement is a terror that freezes me on the spot, that haunts me at night, and pushes me often to tears.
In all honesty, I don't know if I can adequately put into words how I fell right about now. If you've ever heard the song O Magnum Mysterium... You know the biggest part, where it gets loud and just...amazing? It's beautiful, yet one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Well that's how I feel.
As I sat here thinking about all of this tonight and freaking out, my best friend was confiding to me about his fears as well. I tried to be as encouraging as I could, tried to hide at least the worst of my fear, for his sake. At the moment, it wasn't about me. It was about helping a friend find comfort when he didn't know where to look for it. But silently, I felt all that he was feeling. I felt worried for my friends that are leaving, scared that we would lose communication. I felt scared most of all for my sister, who I have never been apart from for more than a few days. She is the one who knows me best, who has always been a constant in my life, and now she'll just cease to be down the hall whenever I need her. I hyperventilate a little every time I think about it.
Yet as I sat here in my despair, the same friend who I originally tried to comfort became my comfort, though he probably didn't realize it. He wanted me to read a post on his new blog, and reading it... I felt a strange sense of calm. Sure I'm still deathly terrified, but I understood my future in a way I'd never looked at it well enough before.
I will not only enter my future will courage, I will charge into it with inexpressible zeal. I will learn and love and live with absolutely no regrets, because everything happens for a reason, and regrets are a waste of time. They don't strength, they don't change the past, they only look down on a time when you were living life. And isn't that the point of this journey anyway? To live life, live it for the good, and live it to get to the real Life waiting for you at the end of the journey?
And that's what I found comfort in tonight as I sat reading my best friend's post. That no matter what is thrown at me, or those around me, in this helter skelter world, the Supreme One, the Father of us all, the one whose love for us fills the sky, is watching over me and guiding my every footstep. He truly is giving me a future. And what a wonderful future it is.
So was today better than the last? You better believe it.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on Earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
Today I sit here, knowing that in a little under two weeks, I will be watching my sister going to college, moving out of the house, away from me. And I'm crushed.
Today I sit here, knowing that in a mere year, I will be the one moving into the dorm room, registering for my first semester of classes, living on my own, responsible for myself. And I panic. My heart races, and I'm more scared than I have ever been of anything in my entire life.
Most teenagers enter their senior year unable to wait for the last bell on their last day of school. I will enter dreading the passing of each week, each day that pushes me closer to that pivotal moment in my life where I will begin to decide upon a future for myself, what will define me for the rest of my life. I will become an adult, will take on responsibility for all aspects of my life, will graduate college, get a job, get married, have children, have grandchildren. Each of these things excites me beyond belief, but equal to the excitement is a terror that freezes me on the spot, that haunts me at night, and pushes me often to tears.
In all honesty, I don't know if I can adequately put into words how I fell right about now. If you've ever heard the song O Magnum Mysterium... You know the biggest part, where it gets loud and just...amazing? It's beautiful, yet one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Well that's how I feel.
As I sat here thinking about all of this tonight and freaking out, my best friend was confiding to me about his fears as well. I tried to be as encouraging as I could, tried to hide at least the worst of my fear, for his sake. At the moment, it wasn't about me. It was about helping a friend find comfort when he didn't know where to look for it. But silently, I felt all that he was feeling. I felt worried for my friends that are leaving, scared that we would lose communication. I felt scared most of all for my sister, who I have never been apart from for more than a few days. She is the one who knows me best, who has always been a constant in my life, and now she'll just cease to be down the hall whenever I need her. I hyperventilate a little every time I think about it.
Yet as I sat here in my despair, the same friend who I originally tried to comfort became my comfort, though he probably didn't realize it. He wanted me to read a post on his new blog, and reading it... I felt a strange sense of calm. Sure I'm still deathly terrified, but I understood my future in a way I'd never looked at it well enough before.
I will not only enter my future will courage, I will charge into it with inexpressible zeal. I will learn and love and live with absolutely no regrets, because everything happens for a reason, and regrets are a waste of time. They don't strength, they don't change the past, they only look down on a time when you were living life. And isn't that the point of this journey anyway? To live life, live it for the good, and live it to get to the real Life waiting for you at the end of the journey?
And that's what I found comfort in tonight as I sat reading my best friend's post. That no matter what is thrown at me, or those around me, in this helter skelter world, the Supreme One, the Father of us all, the one whose love for us fills the sky, is watching over me and guiding my every footstep. He truly is giving me a future. And what a wonderful future it is.
So was today better than the last? You better believe it.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on Earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
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