I've Got a Feeling

If I had to go to BYU, no one was gonna make me be happy about it.

It was 2013. Senior year was over. I'd been a homebody all my life, and I was still a homebody. Homebodies stay home, hence the name. They don't move ten-and-a-half hours north to a different state to get an education. But I felt like I should. So I was going to.

Yet I was dying of anxiety. I'd never had a desire to move anywhere, to travel, to do anything. I wanted to sit on my couch and watch movies with my family on the weekends. But I didn't feel like that was the thing to do. So I wasn't going to.

My feelings could be summed up by the following emojis.

I spent the summer going to work and spending time with the fam, shifting from the feelings one yellow face to another--unamused, afraid, desperate--wishing I didn't have to leave and simultaneously knowing I had to. I had to because I had decided to. I was going to. 

I had to.

Unamused. Afraid. Desperate.

Needless to say, I did go to BYU...and I stayed. It took longer than the ten-and-a-half-hour drive, but it didn't take long, to realize that my feelings were right. I loved BYU. Loved it. I loved being on my own, meeting new people, smiling at them as I walked around campus, learning, eating ice cream at the Creamery, reading a millions pounds of textbooks and spending hours in the Testing Center. (Okay, maybe not those last two as much). I discovered that I didn't have to fly to another hemisphere to do good and to have fun. I discovered that feelings are given to be followed, and that just a little modest exploration can reap a whole lot of