What I got, was so much more.

C.S. Lewis once said, "There are far, far better things ahead, than any we leave behind." But I'm not so sure. I guess this is becoming an annual thing. A once a year blog where I get on here to cry and complain about the imminent change in my life. This time last year, I thought my life was over and in a sense, that it was also just beginning. I was preparing for my first college experience. I had so many ideas of what it would be like. I had everything planned out as to what I was going to do, my major, and my career. It's funny how life has a way of changing things and putting people in our path that change what we thought we knew. I thought I knew what I wanted and what I would get. And I thought I knew exactly what college was like. I envisioned late nights with girls that would one day be my bridesmaids, lots of tears shed both of sadness and happiness and making memories that I would never forget. What I got, was so much more. 

I got showers that give you hypothermia and third degree burns within seconds.

I got 80+ new sisters that I'd never thought would mean this much to me. 

I got friends that I could come to with anything you can imagine and they would take me in, with no judgement. 

I got friends that would watch me make the same mistakes and not say, "I told you so," when it turned out badly... again. 

I got long car rides and partners in crime. 

I got friends that made me eat go eat Mexican food no matter how profusely I claimed to be on a diet. I got friends who cared so deeply about me, that I could never return that favor.

I got friends who held my hand, let me cry in their laps and played with my hair when I just needed to cry about my boyfriend being across the country. 

I got friends who gave me sympathy when I didn't deserve any. 

I got the most ratchet internet in the history of man (aka Okranet.)

I got friends who would sit in the same room with me and listen to me be angry and sad all at once when things were going wrong. (And who would also yell and make death threats to the people that upset me.) 

I got friends who would distract me from the bad when I needed it, and from homework when I just really wasn't feeling it.

I got friends that would do anything in the world for me simply because I asked for it.

I got friends who loved me, when I was unlovable. 

When I left Brandon, I was a mess. I assumed that things would never be the same. They aren't, but I wouldn't change one thing. I sit here now and tell you that I'm feeling the same thing. I'm leaving.... again. I've never been the kind of person to want to settle down in one place for long and to stay in one place for the rest of my life. This isn't exactly how I pictured my college career going (leaving when I just got comfortable,) but I am getting the whole moving thing down pat. As I start to take things down in my room and prepare for the last three weeks of school, I realize that maybe C.S. Lewis was wrong about that. I know that my new life and my new school will be good because that's where God has told me to go. And it may not be better, but it will be different. It will be very different in every aspect, and it will be new. As much as I wish I could say that I'm not nervous because this is essentially the third college I'll attend, I'm just as terrified as I was when I packed up my car to head to Cleveland. But I'm having to trust, yet again, that what God has in store for me is so much better than anything I could have planned for myself. Even though I don't understand what's happening and why it has to, I have to trust and let Him take control. Again. So this is something to say thank you, to everyone that's been a part of my life this year. After all, what's 4 hours apart after a year like that together? I love you all so much. Thank you for all of the memories. 

"But sudenly you catch yourself being surrounded by brand new people and it's different, of course it's different, but you have to remember that if the past was meant to be the present, then nothing would have changed."