“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.” – Marina Keegan.
For some of us graduation is just around the corner while others are just starting their college careers. Regardless of how much time you have left in college, “The Opposite of Loneliness” is an absolute must read. Marina Keegan was only 22 years old when she died, but her legacy will never be forgotten. She had such a promising future, with a job lined up at the New Yorker and a play to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival. “The Opposite of Loneliness” is a compilation of Keegan’s fiction and non-fiction stories and essays, put together by her loved ones to keep her memory alive.
When I read this book, I began to immediately cry. Marina Keegan’s writing is so real. After reading this book all I want is to have had at least one chance to meet Marina. Her writing is so relatable it’s sometimes scary; you can picture yourself as a character in almost every one of her stories. To put it simply, she was so talented she made a dying, beached whale sound like a peaceful experience. And when a famous novelist told a group of Yale students never to go into the field of writing, it motivated her more. I’ve read this book more than three times now, and I promise you’ll regret it if you don’t.
“We’re so young. We’re so young. We have so much time,” she wrote in her final piece for the Yale Daily News. Marina Keegan is an inspiration, and her words are ones to live by. As a senior with graduation quickly approaching, I apply what I’ve learned from Marina Keegan everyday, and I strongly encourage everyone to at least take the time to read her final essay, “The Opposite of Loneliness.”