On longing

If life isn’t drained of meaning as you get older, why do so many novels end when the characters are still young, why does a Shakespearean comedy end with the marriages of one young character to another, and all their lives ahead of them?  It is true that a tragedy isn’t drained of meaning any more than a comedy is, or not for the audience of a tragedy, but for the characters in a tragedy their lives are drained of meaning - whose life could be more drained of meaning than King Lear’s?  Yet a tragedy seems at least as meaningful as a comedy, and even perhaps more meaningful than the Shakespearean romance I hope to be the pattern of my life, when all losses are restored, all relationships are renewed, all daughters are found and wives are turned back from stone.  I don’t know whether regret is less meaningful than hope, or relief less meaningful than anxiety, but perhaps longing is the most meaningful of all these feelings, looking both forwards and backwards, because, when you long for something, isn’t this more than hoping for something in the future, aren’t you longing for something you lost that you might hope to restore?