With the End of One Thing...

     "We spend our time desperately craving to get to the end of this adventure and move on to the next. Yet as the end actually draws near we want time to slow down because we forgot how: brave we were to make it through, much fun we had making fools of ourselves, blessed we are by the friendships we have built, long we spent working through this phase, and how many things we learned as we walked through this time period. So often we think we are just getting by when we could be thriving. So take your time and enjoy this moment because soon enough it will only be a memory embedded on your brain and entwined with your heart."
      These are the words that came to me last night as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep after a very full but fun weekend. Over the past four years, my life has shifted and rearranged many times. I have had so many people come into my life, but also many leave it. People constantly remind me of the phrase, "God places people in your life for either a reason, a season, or a lifetime." I have a hard time dealing with change. In the past, I have dealt with it in ways that I regret, but now...now things have changed (ironic huh?). I have learned to rely on God more than people and accept the fact that some people only get to be around for a little bit. Does that make it easier when people leave? Not really. But it does make the pain more understandable and it becomes easier to move on later.
     So why am I going into the sad rant about people leaving and times changing? Because it's almost summer and every year things change with the summer. We leave school and head off to do our own thing over the break. Very few of us are close enough or have time to see our school friends, and if we do it's only for a short time normally. We go home or somewhere else. We spread our wings and learn how to fly or we go back to our nest and sleep the break away. We grow and change over the summers. You are never the same person you were in May when you come back to school in August. And then there are the seniors. The seniors are about to exit college life for the real world, and leave the rest of us behind.
     This year I have grown exceptionally close to several seniors that will be graduating on Saturday. I am proud and happy that they are done and will be exiting college. Yet I am also sad. Sad because I didn't get to know them sooner. Sad because I didn't spend more time with them. Sad because I don't have more time to spend with them. Sad because, in many ways, I wish I was graduating with them. I know that their graduation doesn't mean our friendship has to end, but it does mean it's going to make it a lot more difficult to keep in touch. They will all go different directions, and I will be here--stuck in the land of prolonged adolescence. They will be starting new lives while I continue on with the same one.
     In the end, our lives will all be memories flashing into the present from the past. So the question is, do you want your memories to be of you spending your days watching TV by yourself or you enjoying the time you have with the people God has placed in your life? Remember, a memory is just a moment of time etched into your soul forever. So make them worth it.