It's over...

Clearly it took me until I got my yearbook this morning to realize what is happening. 21 days from now I'll have completed high school. It will be the biggest transition in my life as I say goodbye to so many people and so many things. And in their place will be new things and new people. People that I've known for my whole life will be out of my life, most perhaps for good. It's a gut-wrenching feeling, and it brought me much closer to an emotional outbreak than I've been in a long, long while. So many things I wish I could take back over the years, but so many more things I wish I had done, so many relationships I wish I had developed more. I did a lot, but missed out on a lot, and the beauty and curse of time is that I can't go back and change it. This part of my life is over. But it wouldn't be so hard to accept that if those that I care about had a secure future. And I'm not talking about a future in their schooling, in their careers, in their families. I'm talking about eternity. My friends will be driving away after graduation perhaps the happiest they've ever been and perhaps with the "carpe diem" live life to the fullest attitude in their hearts. Perhaps in the future their lives will be awesome, and they will die at an old age content men and women. But that doesn't matter to me. None of that matters. The time here can't even be compared, can't even be considered, can't even be measured, can't even be seen in comparison to eternity. And what have I been able to do during these 12 long years to prepare them for it? Apparently not very much. It leaves a gaping hole in my heart to know that the seeds I've planted in their hearts have not yet grown or may never grow. Perhaps they are not even healthy seeds...

I haven't cried for nearly a year, and besides that time I probably haven't for about three or four. I'm not a very emotional guy on the outside. I have trouble expressing things or even feeling things that others may find devastating. When my grandpa passed away, even then I couldn't cry, and I miss him so much... But when I do get upset nowadays, I feel it inside me; I feel the symptoms, I feel the signs. When I think that this is all over, especially for my influence on my friends, I get that way. It's a tough burden to bear. My only hope is that the end of school is not the end of my relationship with my friends. My only hope is that I still have a chance to share with my friends the greatest gift they could ever receive.