My freshman year of college was the worst year of my life. It made me run from the idea of thinking of my school as my new home. Most of the things that happened to me had nothing to do with school, but it's hard to find happiness in a place where you've been down for almost a year.
I recently participated in something that made me reflect on my past few years here at Ohio State, and I realized something that I didn't think was possible my freshman year: I thought of this place as home.
It wasn't just the school, though. Ohio State has given me a lot, but the people I've met here have given me so much more.
These are the people I go to first when I have a problem, they're the ones who I see almost daily, and the ones I make an effort to see when we don't even have school.
I used to get stressed just coming back onto this campus thinking of school and all the work I had to do. I don't know when it happened, but I started looking forward to being back because it meant being around all these people I love.
When I started school at Ohio State, everyone said you can always make a big campus feel small. So that's what I did. I found these groups that I wanted to be a part of (unfortunately not until my sophomore year) and finally found the people that made this campus feel like home.
I love Dayton, but I found a family up here in Columbus that makes me appreciate this place a lot more than I did two years ago.
I'm glad I got to stop running.