I distinctly remember sitting in the chapel here at
Cedarville on getting started weekend back in 2011. Someone on stage had us
fill out these little cards about where we wanted to be in four years…the elusive
2015.
And now I am here. It’s 2015, and it’s really daunting. It’s
uncertain and I want to cry pretty much every morning when I wake up because my
heart is so loved here and the idea of moving on makes my eyes cloud and throat
close…because I will complete the chapter called college in 100 days.
I’m lucky; I know that.
I have had a wonderful college experience. I’ve taken
amazing classes, worked at agencies that I am proud of and lived in a crappy
and much loved apartment. I have had a million Sonic slushes and cups of
Chic-Fil-A lemonade and even more half price Apps at Applebee’s. I have seen
some of the most beautiful sunsets from the windows of cars that are playing
country music and winding around cornfields. I’ve fallen in love with Jesus and
learned to accept and love myself and live a life saturated with grace and
filled with joy. I’ve binged watched too much Netflix, gone to rock, country
and coffee shop concerts and gone shopping an obscene number of times. I have
the best man in the world that I get to call my fiancé and marry in 190 days
that has loved me for 5.5 years through all the changes and craziness of
college. I’ve met some of the most amazing people to pull oxygen from the air
and have laughed and cried more than I thought a person could.
There are people that go to college and hate it. There are
many people that never get to go to college at all. I am so thankful for these
past four years and all the life that they hold. I know am blessed to have a
broken heart right now.
But good Lord does it hurt.
Every time I look into my beautiful friend’s eyes all I can
see is us hugging in those caps and gowns and a corner of my heart starts to
crumble. I see our group-texts going days without a notification. I see us
meeting up again and having those awkward five minutes at the start of a
conversation where you try to stuff the past however many months into a few
sentences and see how much life has moved on since you left them. I see songs
like “Wide Open Spaces” and “Tomorrow” popping up on my iPod and losing it in
my car. I see the fact that in 100 short days my heart will be pulled in dozens
of directions because so many of these people own a part of it now and will
carry it away with them on May 2nd. I see myself letting people and
relationships go, referring to friendships in the past tense and saying “Yeah,
we lost touch after college.”
I am terrified of the day that I start to stop missing
people that mean so much to me right now.
And then I take a breath. I blink. And I remind myself of
truth.
I remind myself that I am blessed to have people I love this
much. I am blessed that as my heart is carried all around the world, that means
that everywhere I go, I am home. I remind myself that all those songs and
places that are now covered with memories are a part of my mental scrapbook;
that passing an Applebee’s or IKEA will bring back moments with people I love.
I remind myself that I live in a time of iPhones where anyone I miss is a text,
call or face time away.
Mostly I remind myself that this is part of life. That is
moves and it curves and four years ago I thought that I wouldn’t make it
through high school graduation.
My fiancé and I recently had a conversation on super powers.
He said time control is the best power and I believed him for a while. And then
I realized…that while it is so tempting to think that if you had more time then
things would be better, it’s just not true.
The fact that time is limited makes it matter.
The fact a baby only takes it’s first steps one time makes that
moment magic, when someone is dying you realize how much they have meant to
you, and college’s expiration date creates the need to cherish it. The fact
that we live a life of urgency means that every second holds power and emotion.
It makes us value people, events and places. Time keeps us pushing and moving
and challenging ourselves. Since we know we don’t have unlimited time, we care
about how we spend it.
It’s not about how much time you get…it’s about how you use
what you have.
So as I sit here on Squishy (our strange brown, couch),
cocooned in blankets and going through tissues like I am single-handedly trying
to destroy the rainforest; I listen to my friends making dinner in the other
room. I listen to their laughter, conversation and singing and I try to capture
every sound, smell, and sight.
Because if I only have 144,000 minutes left, I refuse to
waste a single one.
