Dear Grand Valley,

If I’m honest, I picked you on a whim. It was my senior year of high school and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be. I chose you because of your campus, that green grass and those new buildings. I chose you because you were close to home, close to everything I was used to.

I knew nothing else besides that. They tried to tell me more at orientation, sell me on what I’d already chosen, but I always kept myself in denial in those days, pretending like it was all a dream, walking around but not really being there.

And then, I moved in and reality hit.

You threw me through a lot of hoops that first week. “Transitions,” as you called it, was something to help me adapt, to learn the campus and make new friends. Really it was more like a series of team building activities and classroom rules that made me feel like I was stuck in introvert’s hell. I had never been more tired in my life than those first few days. I remember waking up and not feeling rested; I remember how absolutely sore my feet were. I thought I’d made a mistake.

And then, classes began. I started to meet new people, go new places. I got out of my room, out of my dorm. I joined clubs and rode the bus downtown.

I can’t quite remember when the fear of being somewhere new melted into the fear of that same somewhere new not lasting forever. I can’t remember when, but I know why.

You see, I fell in love with you, Grand Valley. I fell in love in a way I never expected to. I had never lived in a place where I felt like everyone around me, even those I didn’t know, cared so deeply for me, for this place we all shared. I never thought something like that was possible in a place so much bigger than any I’d ever known, and yet there it was, that sense of complete support and guidance.

And somewhere along the line, you even gave me some real friends. The kind you stay up all night with. The kind that you’d rather do nothing with than do something without. I don’t remember when I started calling my dorm “home,” but I think it was around the time I met these friends.

Every waking second there was something to do with you, Grand Valley. There were classes, there were events, and of course, there was so, so much homework. But despite so much happening all at once, I suddenly felt like everything had fallen into the right place with you.

For the first time in my life, every night I’d go to bed and feel accomplished, I’d feel fulfilled, and I’d feel so very much loved.

You see, I picked you on a whim, Grand Valley, and yet somehow you have given me the best year of my entire life.

Thank you.