I never sat on the swing.

That is, until around February of this year. When my boyfriend was walking me back to my car after we had been hanging out in his apartment on campus. No one was around. We passed the swing and he stopped.

"Hey. Do you want to sit on the swing?"

After making him SWEAR that he actually wanted to sit on the swing with me, we sat. We chatted about life. A few friends passed by and made a scene (I'm pretty sure there's a picture of us somewhere?). Then he walked me to my car and said goodnight.

Totes adorbs, presh and whatnot.

Let me give you some background here, and I promise this is related. Social media is really starting to get to me. If you know me or follow me at all, you will know that I very rarely post on any form of social media. If I do, it's a picture. The only time you really see anything pop up on my page is if I'm doing a show, or if I have a sorority event, or a ministry event, etc. I'm not the type to be like, "I had a bad day lol" and wait for people to feed my fire. Ew.

In the spring semester, I made a mistake. I decided to post a status about something that was actually pretty important to me. Something that I thought was only a teeny bit funny, but mostly serious. And you know what happened?

Immediately the drama was too much for me. Don't get me wrong, It's cool. I'm a big girl. I can handle getting razzed. But the whole thing got me thinking about superstitions and traditions and beliefs and why they are so important to culture.

For the record, I'm not necessarily talking about religious beliefs in this conversation. Just good old superstitions. Specifically, superstitions that relate to universities. See, I knew that some bigger universities have major traditions. For instance, at Stanford, you're supposed to go swim in all of the fountains on campus in your first week there. Pretty cool, right? It makes those students feel like they are a part of their unique university history.

Anyway, I'm thinking about these superstitions and I decided to do a little research. With a simple search, I found 16 major superstitions on university campuses. Five of them have to do with staying with your person forever. For these five, I did a little extra digging to see if I could find where the superstitions started from. Most have no origin point. Some do, but they are vague. Like Miami University, they speculate that it was a specific couple that started it by simply talking about marriage under the Upham Arch, but as the story passed from student to student it got more and more embellished. Now, standing under the arch with your sweetie means you are together forever.

Pretty cool, right? All of these universities I researched have these stories and traditions to help their students feel like they are actually a part of the history.

Now, back to the Facebook post I made. We need to talk about the swing. It's a very important swing. You see, when a couple sits on the swing, they are actually magically compelled to get married. It almost guarantees a "ring by spring."

Kind of like the story about Miami University, I was under the impression that this superstition was inspired by a couple who got engaged on the swing. Rumor had it that the couple actually purchased a new swing for the school so they could keep the original. So, I put on my private-eye hat and set out to discover the history of the swing. I decided that going straight to the top dog was probably the best course of action, so a few days later I stopped our university president in the parking lot to ask him about the history of the swing and whether he knew who the original couple was.

Dr. Lacey (basically) said this:

"What swing? Are you talking about the swing in front of the Admissions building? Oh, I bought that swing and put it there. It's like the ones at my undergraduate university and I liked it. Although, I do think that a couple got engaged on the swing over by Muncy, but we've replaced that swing at least two times since then. I think maybe someone bought it from us. Maybe you should go talk to Ken, he probably has a record of who purchased it."

Well, I was only a little crushed. I had built up this giant romantic story in my head about this couple who got engaged and purchased the swing for their home, only to replace it so the magic could stay alive. And it wasn't even the right swing! Say la vee or whatever (I know it's French and I spelled it wrong. It's a joke. Don't get your panties in a twist.).

So I went about my life, nice and dejected.

In my four years at Missouri Baptist University, I never sat on that swing. It was a special place in my mind. For a few years actually, NO ONE sat on the swing. We have swings in the quad that people are constantly hanging out on, but not the swing. Not until this year when suddenly, everyone, everywhere was sitting on the magic swing just willy-nilly, not understanding that they were breaking a tiny piece of my heart every time.

I never sat on the swing. Not until February. And it was wonderful. It was exciting and, well, magic.

As I sat pondering all of these things, I realized something.

The magic isn't in the swing. The magic is that I only want to sit on the swing with Sam. It isn't that he was magically compelled to propose to me two months after we sat on the swing (actually, it turns out he already had the ring when he asked me to sit on the swing), it was that he loved me and he wanted to spend forever with me, so he chose to sit with me on the swing.

Love isn't an immovable magical force. Love is a choice. The magic of the swing is about loving well and inspiring others to do the same. Not only that, but now I am a part of that magical history. I sat on the swing with my honey, and guess what? I got a ring by spring. Feel free to tell my totally romantic love story.

These are my words of wisdom. So, keep the magic alive or something.