"The Opposite of Loneliness", by Marina Keegan

Marina Keegan finished her studies at Yale in 2012 and died tragically in a car accident shortly after. She was beginning to write and a collection of her stories were published in 2014.

Her essay “The Opposite of Loneliness”” is a plea for optimism about what’s yet to come and against guilt about missed chances.

There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead.

What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over.

She expresses her feeling of belonging and security with her friends in college and her feeling of unity with the world. I think the German term “Geborgenheit” describes it best.

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.

We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.