Life is funny. I spent 18 years in the same house with the same family. I had the same friends for the better half of those 18 years and spent kindergarten through graduation surrounded by the same faces. Then suddenly one day it all changed, everything changed.
I drove seven hundred miles away from my dear, sweet, very familiar home. I hugged my friends for the last time and told them to call every week and that three months until Thanksgiving is not that long and hundreds of miles is not that far. But it sure felt far after 12 hours of driving. It felt far when I drove through my home state realizing I wouldn’t live in it for four years. It felt far when I saw the “Welcome To Colorado” sign move farther and farther in the review mirror. I didn’t know it was possibly to feel so nervous and excited at the same time until I took that drive.
As my mom pulled into the Lathrop parking lot my throat became dry and my mind went numb. This is real. This is college, was my only thought, and it repeatedly raced through my brain. How was I going to live without my parents and my brother and my friends, my best friends and my house and my dog oh God my dog, I need my dog. Fast-forward about four hours, countless trips up and down the stairs, and more sweating than I thought was humanly possible, I was moved in. 804 Lathrop Hall was now my home. I hugged my mom. She cried, I cried, she cried more. Then I walked upstairs, wiped my tears and took a deep breath…college was beginning.
Fast-forward again, about three months. Fast forward through rush, syllabus week, and awkward first hellos. By November I knew. I knew that Mizzou was a magical place with the ability to transform into a home--my home. By November, only three months after that nervous teary-eyed car ride, I had changed. I had grown up; I had dipped my toes into the unknown and was ready to fully jump in.
I knew college was going to be the best time of my life, I had heard that line at every graduation party for a month straight, but I never expected to find what I found at Mizzou, a family, and a really good one at that. They started as hallmates or girls in my sorority, or a friend of a friend. Then strangely enough through one or maybe four "High School Musical" marathons, about 20 orders of Gumby's, and a few long walks home from Sig Chi, they became more.
They became my best friends and from there they became my family. What was most shocking was how close we got and how fast. I had only known these people for three months and I felt like I’d known them my entire life, my long lost twins of some sort. After those three months of getting to know each other and experiencing a lot of firsts together, we all only grew closer from there. Not once did I feel like I was miles and miles away from home, Mizzou was my home. If I didn’t have this amazing group of girls just a few doors down from me, I would not be where I am today.
Seven hundred and thirty-four miles away from Mom and Dad, my childhood friends, my dear, sweet, very familiar house and even my dog, and I was happier than ever. On that long car ride to Columbia, I pictured college and Lathrop and how it would all go. I had this ideal image of what I wanted freshman year, and the people I’d meet to be like. I didn’t know it when I first pulled up on move in day, but how freshman year really went blew that image right out of the water. Going out of state for college is terrifying and amazing at the same time. But the people I have met I can truly say have changed my life. Who knew my soulmates were 734.7 miles away my whole life?
