Home Sweet Home

Hey friends!

There has been QUITE a bit to report in the last month since November and I have clearly done a very bad job relaying it here. I keep thinking of blog entries I want to write and then life just sort of runs away from me. So even though there are a lot of things that I want to write about from Thanksgiving and Christmas I decided to separate things by topic and so today's entry shall be about homes.

What is a home? I grew up in the same room of the same house for 18 years. That's EIGHTEEN YEARS of sleeping on the same hard mattress in the same little room on the second floor of the same suburban neighborhood of the same under-appreciated mid-western town. So, it's not too surprising that moving to Utah for school was a huge shock for me.

But I was a little disturbed by just how homesick I got. Okay, scratch that. I was "what the hell is wrong with me?" disturbed by how homesick I got. It was me and not my parents who sobbed as they drove away. Instead of looking at it one semester or month or week at a time, I saw it as this permanent separation. My parents were leaving me forever. I had this completely unexpected physical reaction where on top of crying for no apparent reason about every day for the first week, I also was physically just sick to my stomach. So yes, literally homesick.

Here's an example: during the first few weeks of the semester a girl in my comparative lit class invited me to go to the CougarEat after class with her. I was trying desperately to make friends and do all the things I was supposed to do so I went. We were just talking about our homes and where we come from and out of nowhere I was crying. CRYING. In front of a complete stranger, in public about absolutely nothing. Luckily that girl was really nice and everything worked out. Her name is Lottie and she's now my roommate.

So that brings me to my little epiphany. What makes a home? When I left for school I missed the simple beauty of the midwest. I missed my fairly upper class neighborhood and the green grass and I missed the restaurants and the streets and the buildings I had grown up with. I missed words like "Baxter Road" and "Chesterfield Ward." More than that I missed the tight-knit group of friends I had made in high school. And most of all I missed my family. As the baby I had spent my adolescence watching one sibling leave home after the other. I felt abandoned but at least I still had my parents. When I went to Provo I was totally alone.

And then I started to meet people. They were just names and faces at first. Building a new life is difficult. I hated BYU, I wanted to transfer, to leave, to spend every semester on a study abroad, whatever I had to do to spend as little time on campus as possible. Now I can't imagine what my life would be like if I were somewhere else. The friends I made freshman year are, for the most part, my best friends now. I started college feeling like a weak displaced little girl with just a few friends from my home ward.

Now, three years later, I can honestly say that Utah is my home.

I make fun of it and there is no way that I could stay in Utah after I graduate but I now have a second family here. Of course I will take every opportunity I can to see my actual family in St. Louis, but its less of a physical need than it used to be. I'm so blessed to have people who treat me like a family member here. They take care of me, they listen to me and they love me unconditionally. Isn't that what a family is?

So, like so many before me, I want to just proclaim this lesson I have learned: that a place is only as good as the people in it. I love getting to go home and see my friends and family. They are amazing and and I love them I need them.

However, I've learned that to be independent isn't to go it alone. It's to allow yourself, even when transplanted in foreign soil, to meet new people-all on your own- and trust them enough to give them a piece of your heart. My independence isn't solitary. It's just a brand new start.

So here's to my second home and my second family who make it what it is. Here are some pictures of the spaces I've lived in in Utah over the past few years:
Freshman Year Dorm: 

It was decorated pretty awesome

But I was lonely there a lot of the time

Living in the infamous Liberty Square Sophomore Year was amazing not for the location but for the amazing girls that I had as roommates.

Kristy and I made a fort in our bedroom while everyone was away over Thanksgiving Break

Drinking 'Bubbly' together in fancy goblets from IKEA

It was a multistory fort. Here we are on the ground level

The day we moved out. I was sad to leave that apartment behind.

Pretty much says it all. 

As a third year, I feel like its all pretty old hat. Now my friends spread across two apartments right next to each other on the third floor of the Brittany Apartments. Lottie, Laura, Lacie and I live in one apartment and Katie, Ashley/Kristy, Elise and Whitney live next door. We have an open door policy and are always barging into each other's apartment. Thus effectively, I have 7 roommates. Here's where we live now:

My side of the room. I'm pretty proud of the decorations. Most of them are from my travels this summer

My desk. Notice the English themes everywhere? Some things never change

Lottie's side of the room. A rare moment when her bed wasn't made (usually she's quite faithful)

I've been told this is a "hipster closet"

Very exciting bathroom. Clean for once

Still rocking the wall map

Kitchen. It's never actually this clean

Alfred the smiley faced balloon is a good friend of Elise's

Our door

View from our front door. Could do worse, huh?

So here it is. My Provo home. More than the place, it's the people that make me feel like I belong here. I know it can't last forever but I wanted to take this blog to express how incredibly grateful I am to have been led to such amazing, smart, hilarious people who think that I'm pretty okay too.