When It Ends

I think writers look at life a little bit differently. We know there will always be an ending. There is an ending to absolutely everything. Everything is bittersweet, all the time.

I live like this without meaning to. Every moment I'm laughing uncontrollably, I think "this will be something I'll look back at when I'm old." Every smile my son shows me, I think, "This will be something I'll look back at when I'm old." Every time I have been crazy in love, where I can feel it in deep in my chest, I think, "This will be something I'll look back at when I'm old."

There are things that have already ended for me, and I won't be able to live through again. For example, the first time I flew on a plane. It wasn't scary to me, I knew I was miles above ground but instead of scaring me, it made me feel brave. Or the first time I fell in love, when I didn't know exactly how to love right, but I knew I believed in the magic I felt. Or my first heartbreak, the one I thought I couldn't survive. Or finding love again in my best friend, and looking into his eyes on our wedding day, feeling like there were fireworks inside me. Or even the first time I held my child, his little hands searching for something, someone to hold on to. Even the first time I watched FRIENDS will never happen again, and yes that makes me a little sad.

Every experience is fleeting. Every second that passes has already passed by the time you process it. Every emotion will cease one day. You will get over that ex, you will forget what the weather was like the day you graduated, you will leave behind friends and family as you grow into who you're meant to be.

Others will leave you behind too, and that's okay because they too, have the right to grow into who they're meant to be. They have experiences they don't want to forget, they have experiences they'll never be able to live through again. But it doesn't mean that at one point in time, you didn't have a wonderful friendship, or a magical love for each other.

I look into the mirror and try to picture myself with wrinkles, with white hairs so stubborn that even hair dye can't cover. I can picture it. I look at my beautiful baby's face while he sleeps and I try to imagine what he will look like when he grows into the man he's meant to be. He will have his same beautiful eyes, I'm sure. And the same precious, mischievous smile. And my husband, his hair might become a blanket of white, but his eyes will still be the eyes that I looked into when I said "I do." His hands will still be the same hands I've held thousands of times over the years. I think about these things, all the time.

Everything ends, and yes it may sound sad, but it's also something that makes me grateful for what I have at this moment. When I am old, I will have thousands of memories to look back on, hundreds of smiles from loved ones, hundreds of times I was held by my husband while I was breaking down, hundreds of kisses and times spent dancing in the dark.

We have to make sure we keep all of this in mind, because it is so easy to be distracted by everyday life. We learn to focus on the negatives so much that we forget to enjoy the people that surround us, that love us. We forget to show love to those we care about. Even entire countries forget that we're just a tiny spec of water and solid ground floating through space. We've fought wars, created global conflicts, let humanity starve of necessary rights, all for greed. And for what, exactly?

Everything ends. We won't care about any of this when we become dust again. All we will have is our memories, our experiences. All we will leave behind is a memory of how we treated others, the chain effect of what we did with our lives to positively impact our loved ones, our communities, our world. That's it, nothing else.