When you were young, your parents would constantly be taking photos of you, using those disposable cameras that only had space for 30 photos on them. Every trip you took, every birthday party you went to, those cameras were there.

When you are in grade school, every year you are given a yearbook so you can go back and see all the amazing memories you have made. you can look back on the school dances, the class spirit days, the terrible head shots we all took, and our parents bought because 'you'll want to see how much you've grown'.

You go to college, acting like you know who you want to be when you grow up and embracing the freedom you now have. You go and get lost trying to find our classroom for our 8 am that first Monday. You strategically pick a seat in the middle of the room so you don't look like a 'nerd' who sits in the front or a 'weirdo' who sits in the back; you are perfectly placed to seem as invisible as possible. As our semesters go on, you start to find friends in our dorm rooms and the classes we are in. You join clubs on campus and start to go to events, not really expecting much to come out of them but hey, why not, you know? Soon those people who you say hi too because you kind of know them from that one class or they live in your building start to become your close friends, you start to plan things, like going to breakfast after your 10 am psych class. you get drunk in each other's rooms before you go to the Pi Kapps frat party. You text them screenshots of all your boy and girl drama because you have learned to trust them. you have begun to build a family.

You get older and 'more chill', so instead of going to parties, you host them in the house you and your friends rented this year. You are cool now because you always have booze, the music rocks and you have a table for beer pong and flip cup. You make stupid decisions, you break things, you sing and dance at the top of your lungs with all your friends, you laugh so hard you start to cry. And you begin to genuinely feel happy. You feel at home among these wild and weird people you have gotten so close to. You think about all these great times, excited for your senior year to begin next semester.

Fall comes around and you and your friends can finally be together and go to the bar. This is what you have been looking forward to all summer because you are now 'mature'. You all pregame together at one of your houses, you listen to throwbacks from middle school, so you don't feel as old. You are a regular at the bar and the bartenders know your name and your order. Everyone is singing along to songs like "Hollaback Girl' and 'Take Me Home'. You stumble to main street to get food from the local hole in the wall joint that everyone loves. You laugh, and cry, and probably throw up when you get back home because your stomach hurts and you want to sleep.

But you go out and do it again the next night because that is what college is about. Not the booze and the drinking, but the memories you made and the happiness you felt. And we know we were happy because we took pictures every chance we got. We wanted to look back on all these moments and relive them as we got older. We wanted to share them with our friends and family and say, "I am happy and I am where I am meant to be", whether that's in a bar on a Tuesday night or cramming for finals that next Wednesday.

But this spring, I did not get to make those memories. I was not able to end my college career getting Taco Bell at 1 am and then again at 1 pm because we really wanted a quesorito. I wasn't able to go to the college sporting events that were about to make school history. I wasn't able to go to the bar and sing and dance with my friends before we got pizza. I wasn't able to experience a joy that physically overwhelms me, that whole body feeling of pure happiness.

And it hurts.

I would give anything to be able to go into the classroom and sit in the front of the room and be a nerd. I wish I could go to the school events that I helped put together. To see professors who I love and skip the classes of ones I truly hate. I wish I could feel like a kid again, surrounded by people who I care about, who I have formed friendships with, who have become a family to me.

I would give anything to have the chance to take photos of all the amazing things I would have done this semester. To have the memories that were taken from me. but I can't.

And it hurts.

It hurts to look at these past few months and know you could not control what happened and it is something we all had to go through. But it hurts to know you are never going to have the chance to make these stupid college memories with your friends. I would give anything to go and make mistakes and wake up and laugh about it all the next morning, because at least I had the chance to make them.

I didn't think that the saying "college is the best time of your life" was true, but looking back on all the people I met and experiences I had, I can tell you, for a fact, that this part of my life has been the best so far because I found my people and I found my home.