Into Marvelous Light

I am made of empty spaces. That’s what being human means. There is a certain longing, a certain loneliness that comes with existence on this earth. I can’t even count the number of things and people that have filled my emptiness temporarily. That’s the other part of being human—we fill our voids with other human things. All those things, though, [[whether they were people or places or even books]] just ended up leaving me emptier than before. Chasms and canyons of loneliness and isolation. Empty spaces. Here’s the thing about being a human: It’s all temporary. In the span of about 90 years [[on a pretty generous unofficial average, of course]], I’m going to love hundreds of people, go hundreds of places, read hundreds of books. And you know what’s scary? Not a single one of them is going to last. People leave; places change; books end. If I rely on anything in this life to fulfill me—to complete me—I’m going to end up right where I started. A mess of broken pieces and empty space...

"All good things must come to an end." I've heard that phrase way too many times in my short nineteen years of existence. Or long nineteen years of existence, depending on the day and my mood. ;) Someone jokingly asked me at one point this past summer, "Why do all good things have to end?" I didn't really think that much of it. It was a joke; I laughed; we moved on. But I've been stuck on that a lot lately. I had a pretty fantastic 2014, ya know? I graduated from high school; I made some priceless new friends, and strengthened my relationships with others; I went to Europe; I loved and was loved so very deeply. And, like all good things, 2014 had to come to an end. High school is over. All my fun little road trips are over. The movie nights and Starbucks dates I shared with the friends I love being with so much are over. And I keep going back to that silly little question: Why? Why do so many of the great things in life have to be so short? Why d...