Forever

How is it possible to fear the future yet embrace it at the same time? I'm so ready to be out of high school and have this freedom to really define myself and start my life. But then I realize that when I leave, my friends can't come with me, at least not all of them. The more that life keeps moving, the more people move away.

I remember Brooks' note called Love like a River and how life has to keep flowing. That's how God made it. Then I think of the concept of eternity. Why do we mourn and have fear when we know that we'll see these people again after we die, and then we'll never be apart? I guess our minds can't fully comprehend the difference between now and forever, so we hurt. We cry. We hold our friends close to us and tell them never to go.

I'm really going to miss all the seniors that are leaving this year. Wednesday nights and chamber music classes are going to feel so...empty. The people that it's taken time for me to go close to are leaving, and I have to start over. It scares me to think of all the juniors that are graduating next year. How many of us will be left? How many more friends will I have to make before I leave them behind, too?

Why couldn't we just be born in heaven, where there's perfect love and community?

Why do we have to wait?

And why is it so hard to wait?