weird, weird

This is a picture of me that Annette Haring (the famous scrapper/photographer/genius say whaaaaaaat) took of me right after I graduated from high school. Like literally the day after. 

Thinking about that season of my life is weird. I was at such a different place, and that was just three and a half years ago! I had never been to Europe, I had never been to college... I guess those are the two most important things that have happened since then. 

I was not excited to come to BYU. I had no idea what I was doing, besides maybe going down the English-teaching path. I was actually really upset about a lot of things. I was already stressing about leaving my friends. I was not really sure that I was happy to be who I was. 

This wasn't going to be some touchy-feely-confession post about oh-I-have-grown-so-much... It actually started out as a memory I got while I was walking home yesterday of a study group from a year ago that feels like it was 239048 years ago. That study group was so fun for me. We would get in trouble for laughing too loud in the library. 

Then, later last night, was my intramural kickball team's last game. We were not (I was not) especially good at kickball compared to some oddly amazing teams, but this was the first time I had really ever been on a sports team, and I was friends with more than one person, and I came to all the games, and when the ref called "game" I literally had a ten second crisis. The Madi in my head (that pushes buttons and runs the mechanic things that make me move and organizes my thoughts in file cabinets) climbed down into my heart and sat there and said "Do you realize that in two short months you will leave this place and you will not be a student and you will never have a chance to be on a team like this ever again. You might never see these people ever again. Do you realize that one of the most influential chapters of your life is closing? Have you made the most of it?"

I leaned over and put my hands on my knees, like I was looking at my shoes, but instead I closed my eyes and I told little Madi, "It's OK. It's done. Thank you for convincing me to go through with this." And in the moment I meant the kickball team, but tonight I think what little Madi knew I meant was "Thank you for convincing me to come to college here. Even though I sometimes hated it and I still don't always like it sometimes, it has been the best thing for me in so many ways. 

"So. Many. Ways."

I have a friend named Ali that made up a song one night when we were all a little tired and there was a guitar begging to be played, called "Weird, Weird, Things Are Getting Weird." When I started writing this post all I could think of was that these thoughts and feels are SO WEIRD. But then I thought: they are also good. 

Thank you for being a part of my weird college experience.