Last Night Reflections

I'm sitting here in a dorm room that echoes when I hit the keys on my laptop keyboard because a.) it's a new non-shoeboxy room with high ceilings, tiles floors, and not enough of my stuff in it to keep it from being cavernous and b.) it is so ridiculously quiet here right now that every sound is accentuated and amplified.

Tomorrow, I'm heading home. Back to Ohio. I made a list of five people that were essential to say personal goodbyes to, in which I would most likely cry and/or get ridiculously, emotionally sappy as a result of (hopefully after I was away from them). To those of you who read this who have already received your goodbyes, I apologize for the sappiness. To those of you who haven't received your goodbyes yet, I apologize in advance. Please don't punch me for crying. You know who you are.

This semester has been....wow.

That's the only way to describe it. You (well, most of you) don't know anything that's gone on in my life this semester, things that I've thought, prayers I've prayed, changes  that have occurred. You will never know the effect that one semester here has had on me. My life has been thoroughly changed throughout the course of roughly four months. The friends I've made here have become my family. I wrote an open letter to about nine of them about two weeks ago, to just barely tap the tip of the iceberg on the amount of epic awesomeness that each and everyone of them have brought into my life. I don't regret one moment spent with any of them, and I wouldn't change the friendships and relationships I've built for the world.

I won't lie. I have regrets. I have people that I wish that I would have built friendships with before the last week of school. One in particular. I've learned my lesson. Never let circumstance dictate your future friendships. Always make sure you know all sides of the story before passing judgment. And don't learn that the hard way. It sucks.

Keep your mind and heart guarded, but open. You never know who will creep in and surprise you.

Embrace change. It's the only real way to grow into a better person.

Sometimes the hardest things to hear are the things that you most need. Even if they really, really suck. A lot.

The decisions that you spent your entire life saying that you would never, ever make can sometimes make your life so much more awesome than you could ever imagine. And I'm pretty sure that God is up there saying, "I told ya so!"