One year ago today, I sat down at the computer with my parents, typed in “ohio.edu” and submitted my deposit. February 4th, 2017, the day I officially committed to Ohio University’s class of 2021. It was monumental; it was when I took that first leap and decided I wouldn’t stop running until I found that happiness, wouldn’t settle until I got exactly what I wanted. And I did. It was the craziest, scariest decision I’ve ever made. Everyone fought me the entire way.
“Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“Can’t you choose somewhere closer to home?”
“This is a big decision, why don’t you put more time and consideration into it?”
“We can’t go back after this.”
From the outside looking in, nobody quite understood what I really needed, only I could. I had never visited OU, never been to the state of Ohio, but just had that gut feeling that this is what God has planned for me. There was no if, and, or but. No second option. This was it. Athens was shouting my name, calling me home, pulling me closer…. and so I came.
A month later, we embarked on our first 8-hour road trip to little Ohio town called Athens. It was surreal to walk on the bricks for the first time because as soon as I got out of the car, I knew I was home. My parents thought this was all insane. How did their daughter end up choosing this school, out of all places?
People thought I’d be a little skeptical on my first visit, that maybe I’d change my mind. They all walked around me on tiptoes, quietly whispering and waiting to see what would happen. This is going to make or break it all! The deal-breaker. Will it be OU?
And yet, even though my parents had their doubts, they both saw the way my eyes lit up when I walked along these brick roads, the way my smile got bigger when I walked through town, how my composure changed as I soaked it all in, realizing that I couldn’t wait to be here.
So that was it. I visited my future home and there was not a single doubt that I was about to go on the greatest journey of my life. I was running across campus, trying to explore as much of it as I could before the day was over, overwhelmed with happiness. The trip to OU was all I could talk about for the rest of the year.
Fast-forward to one year later: the Facebook post came up on my Timehop: “Couldn’t be happier to say that I’ve committed to Ohio University".
And that was how my story began.
It's the story of how in five months here, one year after my decision, I crawled out of the dark hole of misery I was in for so long and learned to fall in love with life again. I learned to work for everything I wanted and to never stop until I succeeded in doing so. I threw myself into a completely new atmosphere, molded myself into a new person, and started over. To be thrown into a different atmosphere and climb my way to the top is exactly what I did.
So far, this year has made me realize how much I take for granted and how lucky I really am to have a chance to start over after a rough life in high school. I’ve learned to love with every fiber of my being, to just be happy with myself, to laugh until my stomach hurts, and to see how much of a difference my college friends have made in my life in such a short period of time.
Because I live for the nights of watching people sled down Jeff Hill, coming into the αοπ house to see my best friends doing face masks, plopping down next to them on the couch to stuff our faces with Oreos, endless "Gilmore Girls" marathons, and the chilly nights of walking underneath the stars next to the boy with the blue-green eyes, talking about everything on our minds and feeling like nobody understands each other better than the two of us do.
It is an indescribable feeling to wake up and fall asleep everyday thinking the same thing.
So what is that one thing?
It’s “I’m in love with this place.”