Though I am young, every once in awhile, I pause and catch the sense of my own death. I hear of people dying, I feel my body wear, or I reflect on how quickly even these few 18 years have passed by and my inability to stop them as they continue slipping out of my hands. My mind can hardly grasp that I will someday cease to exist. How can I imagine the hardships in my life to come, the slow decaying of this now resilient body, and then the tipping off of reality into the grayness of eternity and the unknown?
In those brief moments my mind seizes up with fear and then grief for my own short life. I’m struck with the preciousness of these days. Then, the moment passes, I move on with my life, pulled along by inexorable time that will someday drag me to my end. This view of limitedness does give more value to my being in the moment. I appreciate my family members more after realizing that our time is limited; I hold close to my friends while we are still bound together by love; I take the opportunities given to me knowing my time is not guaranteed.
Even less often, however, am I struck by invincibility as I was over Christmas break, perhaps because I am so young that it’s a default attitude. We were driving back from Shenandoah National Park where Joseph, Ellie, Bailey and I had hiked up to Hawksbill Gap, the highest point in the park, to watch the sunset. The sun had painted the drab, brown mountains with a gradient of pinks, purples, blues, and oranges while the sun itself glowed through the skeleton trees.
We now drove fast through the dark; Joseph’s ever present music played through the speakers of the car; our youthful freedom rushed around us. We were all so in love with life, so loving being together. We talked of our dreams of studying music, having careers that fulfilled our inner passions, traveling out west to climb the Rockies, a glorious heaven, and our infinite God. The world seemed made for us and we are going after it. I felt what it is to be young then, the wonder of the future, the boundless possibilities, all the beauty and goodness there is to be had. I felt limitless.
Excerpt taken from a blog post by Erin. See the full blog post here.