I was that girl who cried herself to sleep at camp and ached to go home early from missions trips because she missed her family so much. I couldn't handle being away from home for more than a week even with my family. Let's face it, I was one of those homeschooled kids who just loved the routine and comfort of her own house with people she'd known her whole life. I'm being quite honest here, this whole college thing has scared me ever since I was little. Now that I'm here though, it doesn't feel like I've been here for long at all. In fact, my friend witnessed me completely puzzling over the fact that I've in fact been attending classes for over two months. Time flies. And sometimes I find myself wondering how on earth I've managed to keep my homesickness at bay. God has truly blessed me in the start of my first year on my own by surrounding me with some awesome people.
Today I'm thankful for my band family here at school. Does that sound like a completely nerdy thing to say? It probably is a completely nerdy thing to say. Does it look like I care though? Without my real family here at school, these people have become my family. I see them all after class every day, and I even eat dinner with them every night. They ask me how my day was. They tell funny stories. They always have good advice (well, actually, that depends on the person giving advice I suppose!!) Anyway, these people make my day every day :)
God has blessed me so much with friends this year. During the last couple years there would be days I would just come home and cry because I longed for really good, true, "kindred spirit" sort of friends. And with the exception of Emma, I could not find those sort of people anywhere in high school. I was so frustrated by the end of senior year that I blew through my graduation ceremony without even shedding a tear! (and it usually doesn't take much to make me cry).
My dad called it. He told me "Mary, you're ready for a change. I can tell." Boy was he ever right.
A lot has changed over the past five months. It's been a gradual change, but at the same time, a very abrupt change. I don't miss a lot of things about high school. I just don't. Saying goodbye in June was easier than I thought it would be. Now the events that took place a mere six months ago feel like a lifetime away. I don't know what happened to the time! Summer came, and I saw a lot of my friends from high school, but I realized something. I'm not like these people. We started truly living in different worlds. I realized that I don't listen to the kind of music they do, I don't value the same things they do, I don't laugh at the nasty jokes they do, and I just don't like spending time with a bunch of them! Of course there are people I miss from last year, but for the most part it wasn't hard to say goodbye to the majority of them. That's when I realized that I was ready to leave. I needed to go somewhere far away from all that had been surrounding me for so long. Then the biggest change of all happened seemingly (or actually) overnight. College.
It wasn't as instantaneous as I had hoped. It wasn't as hard as I had dreaded. But after a few weeks of insanity (the kind of insanity that can only be associated with completely changing everything and moving away from home) I started making friends. These people I now call friends are like family to me. I always, always, ALWAYS have someone to talk to if I need to, and they're always, always, ALWAYS there. That's a good thing to know on days like today; days that I miss my real family a lot. Alotalotalotalot. Every day isn't always easy, but in the end, it's always good.
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