endings and beginnings

me and two of my best friends from film school being happy at the bon jovi concert. sam and martha.

I'm taking an 18 month break from school. And chances are, most all of my friends will be graduated and will have moved on to new things when I finally make it back to school. This is really disheartening, and it's a sacrifice for me.

But remember how I felt this same wistful feeling at the end of last semester? And at the end of last school year? And a little teeny bit at the end of high school? It's a pattern. A pattern that applies to most everyone I think, but I've just now pinpointed it for me. 

Everything ends. All these good, amazing, fun, awesome things I get to do start out as a sometimes uncomfortable adjustment, but by the time it ends I realize how much it has meant to me and how much I love it. I grow really close to people easily. Sometimes I think my heart is too big because I get attached to people and things (and books and songs and movies and sandwiches) so easily. Then the great thing has to come to an end and we have to leave, and I feel like something is missing for a while. Then I meet new people that get to fill in those voids. 

I'm sad about it now, but I know that the emptiness that is left after this semester will be filled eventually. I'll go through the same cycle of adjustment, being comfortable, being happy, and then sadness upon the inevitable end. It's going to happen with my study abroad, and then happen again (probably times 100) with my mission.

I'm learning not to be sad when it's time for another ending. Isn't it great that we all get to be characters in each other's stories? Going through this cycle of loving people and leaving people just makes us warmer and more human, I think. And things will always come back into our lives to help fill in the gaps again. And I'm going to be happy. I am happy.