Endings Are Promised
Amelia Giese (she/her)
Editorial Team Member
Saying goodbye is life’s guarantee. Everything must come to an end. From your last day of practice to leaving your cousins at Thanksgiving to taking your last breath—an ending is all we’re ever promised.
Some things we knew would come to a close: like your senior year of high school or the last days of your dream vacation in Greece. They glow like flashing lights in the distance. You turn around for what feels like just a moment, and when you look again, the lights are right in front of your eyes.
Other endings arrive out of the blue. The end of a relationship. The sudden death of a loved one. They fall out of the sky and smack you in the back of the head. Sometimes you fall flat on the floor. Every time, you must get up again, no matter how long it takes.
Nearly four years ago, I was given a gift. I got to create a stage, I got to use it, and I got to share it with others like me. In just a few weeks, that gift will be gone. It will still exist, but not for me. Saying goodbye was once a flashing light in the distance, but now, I’m staring straight at it.
I am honored to have been a part of this team and a part of this mission. What we have made—our stories, our art, our magazine—will live on forever. What we do will change lives; I already know we have. What we created is eternal. It was here yesterday, and it will be here tomorrow. Our voices cannot be silenced. We will never be finished speaking.
All I ask, as I write for you one final time, is just a small thing: Don’t forget our voices.
Don’t you dare overlook young women. We are important. We have valuable things to say. We have always been here, and we have always been diminished. But living this way does not have to be inescapable.
Be a part of our mission. Lift us up. Carry us forward. Give us a microphone and we will change the world. And for those of you who have never walked in our shoes, do not mock a pain you have never encountered. There is a beauty in speaking, yes, but there is also a beauty in listening. So listen to us.
Goodbyes are inevitable. So is having an opinion. This stage, this magazine, this space where girls like me could speak without apology, became a space I didn’t know I needed. That is how I know others need it too.
I have changed immeasurably during my time on this stage. I have grown stronger. I have gotten taller. This stage didn’t just give me a voice; it gave me myself. But most importantly, I learned to hear girls like me. It is not only the job of established voices to quiet for the voiceless, but for rising voices to do so as well.
The world doesn’t revolve around me, and it doesn’t revolve around you either. The world belongs to all of us. Being told that I have helped give someone a place where they felt like that was true is a greater honor than playing a role in building the stage itself.
In a perfect world, we’d all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” But this is not a perfect world. Still, I believe we can get closer to singing in harmony—and that all starts with someone brave enough to imagine a stage for the voiceless. Thank you, Beth.
If endings are inevitable, then beginnings must be as well. I hope the next girl who steps onto this stage finds it as life-changing as I did. I hope the world she inherits is louder, braver, and more willing to listen than the one we began with. I hope her voice is steady in every outlet.
“Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” - Homer, Iliad.
With so much love and many tears,
Amelia
