Let’s breeze through lunch today because I am anxious to discuss an article I read this morning.
I was hungry earlier than usual today.
Right around 11 a.m., I fixed myself a yummy lunch of chicken salad and a smoothie.
To make the smoothie I combined the following:
- 1 large frozen banana
- 1 cup strawberry banana Greek yogurt
- 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
- Enough milk to get everything goin’
It hit the spot!
The Best Years of Our Lives?
I read an article this morning that really touched me.
The author of the article, Marina Keegan, died in a car accident on Saturday. She was 22.
Keegan was a student at Yale University and her article was published by the Yale Daily News and distributed at the graduation ceremonies at the university last week.
(Source)
In her article, Keegan talks about the feelings she had as a student at Yale.
“It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together.”
Don’t we all love and crave that feeling? That someone is going through exactly what we’re going through? That we’re not alone? That we’re all in this together, struggling and trying to make the best of the cards we’re dealt?
It’s clear from reading her article that Keegan felt a real sense of belonging on her college campus and camaraderie with her fellow students. She says she felt the “opposite of loneliness,” and wanted to hold onto that feeling for the rest of her life.
The part of her article that had me nodding my head in agreement came in the middle.
“But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old.”
I love this.
As a teenager in high school and then as a college student, I remember cringing when I would hear adults say, “Enjoy these years. They’re the best years of your life.”
I get that being an adult comes with a lot more worries and anxiety. More pressure, more responsibility.
But the thought that the best years of my life are behind me is simply depressing.
I miss the crazy parties in college and high school. I miss living so close to my best friends. I miss not having to worry.
But while I do miss certain aspects of high school and college, I want to always try my best to love the life I’m living right now. Sometimes it’s a lot harder than others, but making a conscious effort to live a life that makes me happy is very important to me.
I want to spend time with my loved ones. I want to laugh with my husband every day. I want to explore and share. I want to be challenged and excited.
I want to always remember the fun times in my past, but continue to have fun in my future. I want to believe that the best years of my life occurred in the past, but will also occur in the future.
Thank you, Marina Keegan, for this reminder.
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Just beautiful. I agree with every word. Also, thanks for making me tear up at work! haha
Love this. I love what she wrote, and I love your response. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
I love this article and your response to it. So much growing up is happening in my life right now and so much change…this is exactly what I needed today. Thank you!
I can’t get rid of the goosebumps, even as I sit here writing a comment. Life is short, and I’ve always refused to believe that my “best years” are behind me. If I believed that, what else would I have to look forward to? Mediocrity? No thanks. Thanks for sharing this story, Julie!
I couldn’t agree more. It’s so important to be present and to appreciate what you have right now. I find it so hard sometimes but it’s so important. What a touching post!
Thank you so much for posting this article. I am going to try to look forward to more of my “future best years” of my life. My outlook is changed. Before reading this I thought the best years of my life were behind me in my childhood and college. I thought nothing would compare to those years. I will live in the moment, because later in life these moments right now will be the best years of my life.
Oh man….this is beautiful, yet so hard to swallow. I hope her family grieves thoroughly and healthfully during these times. And it’s such a reminder that everyday is beautiful in an of itself no matter what! I seriously needed a lil encouragement today, so thank you and thanks to Marina. <3
Great topic! We often say that “our best years are behind us” because we trend to only realize how special those years were as we reflect on them with nostalgia. It can be difficult to live in the present and to appreciate our lives as they unfold. I’m working on this every day!
What a devastating thing that happened to Marina. Sad to hear she has passed. Thanks for sharing this article though, it is very empowering and very relatable.
Wow- great article. It is powerful, especially now that she has passed.
I feel like I’m in the best years of my life right now (nearing 30). I’m loving it and and hope to continue having adventure and fun as I age.
Having just graduated from the University of Notre Dame last Sunday, I can totally relate to this! Everyone was saying that “our lives are over” after we get that diploma and leave South Bend, but I like to think that my life is always just beginning when something new is on the horizon!
I graduated from college 8 years ago, and those first few years out were tough…working hard, having new responsibilities, but still having the stamina and desire to want to act like I’m still in college.
Now that I’ve gotten married and started a family, I find myself yearning for those days less and less. I think of my time now as the best time of my life, just as college was. My husband and I were just saying (on our way home from Vegas – see, we still keep it fun) that life is just as fun now, but in a different way. It’s all about perspective.
I love this post, Julie! I feel like I’m always struggling with “enjoying now” because I so often look forward to the good times in the future or miss the great times of the past, but it is SO true that we need to live all of our years as “the best years of our lives”
so true. i read this article earlier and it really touched me. enjoy the life you are living now. so sad that she passed away but i’m glad she left the world with her wise words.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 http://www.youversion.com/bible/jer.29.niv
Couldn’t agree more! I feel like my life is continually enriched by the experiences and people who enter and exit my life. The joys of being a wife and now a mother have made these some of the best years of my life, but not the only best years of my life. I can’t wait for what the future holds 🙂
I graduated from college two days ago and have been in quite an emotional state since–this post could not have come at a better time. Really thought-provoking, it puts things into perspective for me!
Great post – thank you for this. If we don’t look forward and anticipate all the great things to come, life really isn’t worth living. I’m so sad that the author of such accurate and touching words is no longer with us – and she had so much of her life – so many good years! – ahead of her.
The accident was less than a mile from my house. Very sad indeed.
This is so sad to me. Marina was killed on Route 6 in dennis, ma..my hometown 🙁 God bless her soul!! She did write an amazing article!
My mom always tells me that the people who thought their high school years were their best years, have lived a sad life. After all, high school and college only adds up to 8 or 9 years, on average! I’m very sad that the author did not get to live a long life. Hopefully everyone will learn from her story, though.
Love your post today. We should love every part of our lives even though we are not in college anymore. I loved high school, college and my “career” for different reasons. I would hate to look back on life and only be happy with one aspect of it. Seems, like you said, depressing!
What an amazing post! Marina was from a town about 20 minutes away from me so this has gotten a lot of news coverage in the past few days. Her death is so, so, tragic, but I think we are all so grateful to hear those words of hers that will forever live on in the way we choose to embody them. Her message is SO important…as a recent college grad myself, I feel incredibly fortunate to read them and hopefully live them. RIP, Marina<3
Without reading the article and going off your post, I am with you in hating the idea that the best years of my life could potentially be behind me. I had a blast in college (not such a blast in high school, but I know it could have been worse) and miss those days. I am turning 30 in a couple of months and it’s completely overwhelming, but I know that things are going to change. They have to. I have too much living left to do.
Beautiful article! Thank you for sharing it.
It’s amazing how quickly life goes by year after year, and each year can feel like the best. But it does, it can get better.
To be honest, I didn’t care for high school all that much, and university and technical school were ok, but I am enjoying my life more than I ever have right now at the age of 37. I have a long established career as med lab tech in the top third of seniority. I’m at the top of pay scale and currently accruing five weeks of vacation per year. I’m comfortable in my job and as a senior technologist, I’m one of the go to people for questions for new techs. I’m a homeowner on my own, accruing equity in my home and putting a ton of renovations into it. I didn’t need my parents help or have to get married to do it.
You couldn’t pay me anything to go back to my twenties, just starting out. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Life is way better now than it was then!:)
Love this. 🙂
Absolutely beautiful post Julie! I have always cringed too when people said to enjoy high school and college as they were the best years of our lives. I think the best years of our lives involve every single year that we make great! I want to love my life and enjoy every part of it 🙂
Lately i’ve been stressing many aspects of my life, now usually i’m the one who is always motivated, you just got me back on my wagon with this post.
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing this Julie. I live in New Haven and this is the first I have heard of Marina’s passing. What a heartbreaking loss for her family and friends. She had a true gift with words and it is tragic that she passed away so young.
I hate that saying as well, I think our lives change constantly but each year is something new and causes us to change and grow and is a unique experience in itself. Although college was care-free and full of partying, there are different ways that parts of our lives can be the “best”! There’s so much to look forward to!
Absolutely beautiful post. I read this earlier today and have come back to re-read it several times. Thank you for sharing Marina’s message and for sharing yours, Julie.
thanks so much, meg. 🙂
people always said that and it really made me depressed because I was absolutely miserable in HS and college. I am so much happier now and have come to the conclusion that the people who said this were absolutely frickin’ nuts.
And I can only assume life gets better from here as it seems to get better every year.
Love this post! I was just talking about this same subject today with my husband!
I think this is a poignant reminder to always live in the present moment. Each moment of our lives is an opportunity to be better, do better, live truer by the life experience of the moment before it. It is extremely sobering to read this from a young woman whose life experience was ended when she was so young. May it be a reminder to us that at any moment, our journey may end and how will we live until that moment?
Thank you so much for sharing this article! How touching and how sad all at the same time.
“We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late.”
That hit me like a brick. I’ve felt exactly what she felt, told myself exactly what she told herself, how tragic that in the end we don’t always have so much time.
That story is incredibly heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Thank you for sharing!
this was an awesome post, so true and i def feel the same way!
I saw your link to this on Facebook this morning, and I found the article to be stunning, both on a writing level and on a message level.
I agree with a lot of what she said and a lot of what you said in this post. The more I think about it, the more I start to dislike the phrase “best years of our lives.” To look back and label a portion of your life as your best years is a pretty hopeless outlook, if you ask me. What’s more, I don’t think it’s at all fair to compare your education years to your grown-up years to your old-age years or whatever. Yeah, maybe you had more conventional “fun” in college (parties, being surrounded by your peers, your first taste of freedom, etc.), but I imagine there’s a lot of things that often come along with being a grown-up (marriage, the opportunity to raise children, etc.) that are also amazing, beautiful things.
Things like this really open your eyes. Sometimes our “bad” days aren’t really so bad after all… Time really is priceless. Thanks for sharing this story!
I’m 33, a wife of 13 years (in 2 weeks), mom of two daughters ages 6 and 9 and I was just thinking ‘Man! I love this stage of life!’
We get older and the things we define as fun change; however, I find that life just gets better and better as I get older. I appreciate things differently, respect little things more and get to see things as fun and exciting as my daughters show me they are.
i LOVE this comment!
Thank you so much for this post. Seriously, you have no idea how much it made my day.
i’m so glad it touched you, lauren. 🙂
Very touching!
Thank you for sharing this article with us, Julie. I believe it’s very important for young people, high schoolers specifically, to know that even though their heads are stuck in the “get me out of here and onto the next phase,” we should enjoy where we are and know that the future keeps getting better and better.
I absolutely agree. My parents are in their 70’s and they say THIS is the best time of their lives. They take ballroom dancing classes, they go to dinner with friends, they travel around the country in their RV for weeks at a time, and they hold hands when they walk down the street together. Every phase of your life can be the best one yet!!
Wow Julie!
You just made me see life in a new light.
I have been feeling lonely and sad for a really long time, but this post made me realise that I am in control of my own happiness.
You should know that you are making a difference in being so positive. In fact, reading your blog has helped me recovery from a severe Eating Disorder.
You are wonderful and this post was absolutely amazing.
Thanks you!
Erica
this comment really moved me. thank you, erica.
I always hated when adults said that to me as well. My opinion is that if “the best years of your life” have already passed, well, you’re doing it wrong. Live in the now! I hope that I’m always in “the best years of my life”
Thanks for sharing the article Julie 🙂
What a great article. I love this! I often find myself sad that I can’t recreate my days in college, but I have so many more days ahead to create amazing things!
Thanks for saying that. I’m in college now and I feel the same you did when people tell me that these are the best years. I’ve always tried to live in light of the fact that, with the Lord, the best is always yet to come.
Such an amazing article. As a 22 year old about to finish grad school I can’t help but feel a little dread about “growing up” and losing all of the fun. Amazing words to put life back into happy perspective