Moving out!

Today was the day I came home from my first year of college. It was an adventure.

No, really. It was. I will tell you all about it riiiiiight……Now.

I woke up and was extremely hot because the night before was freakishly cold for May, so I had a lot of blankets covering me, but today was normal May weather, and the sun was shining through my window right on me and I was burning up so I decided to lie in bed and tan so I kicked the blankets away and pulled up my shirt to expose my belly and let my body drink in the fresh vitamin D.

…I just realized that was an insane run-on sentence. Deal with it. I’m not fixing it.

I had some adventures running around trying to sell my books to a million different buyers as well. I saw a sketchy man with a booth set up who said he would pay cash for my books, more than the bookstore would, so I took him up on the offer and sold him my book after comparing prices with the bookstore. I felt super savvy.

What really made my day awesome, though, was I got to be a hero! I was hanging out with my friend Gavin because we figured we wouldn’t be seeing each other all summer and we’ve gotten to be really close friends recently, so we wanted to see each other one last time before the long summer. He showed me his room for the first time, but it was empty because he’d already started moving things out and putting them into storage. He lives in a faraway land so he has to put his belongings in storage since he can’t travel with them all. It was at this time that I noticed my belly was cramping and I started to feel like I was maybe going to die, so I went to the drinking fountain and took an ibuprofen.

He probably thinks I’m a druggie.

After awkwardly standing in Gavin’s room for a while, he decided it was time for him to leave so he walked me to the door of his building and we said our goodbyes. So we hugged and all that, and I told him he was one of my best friends (sentimental things like that are a thousand times harder for me to say when I’m fully awake than when I’m half-asleep. When it’s really late at night, I say things like that all the time, but never in the day. So it was hard, but I really wanted to say it, because I really meant it and felt he would benefit from hearing it.) And then he told me I was his best friend, like actual best, best friend, and I felt very special. But I have never been one to have a very best friend, the same way I don’t have a “favorite” of anything like colors or movies or songs, so I didn’t tell him that he was my absolute best, best friend. It would have been a lie. But he is definitely one of my best friends. I am announcing it to the world now that Gavin is one of my best friends and that he is very special to me. In fact, I’ve noticed that I’m almost never not smiling when I’m with him.

Now here’s where it gets good. At least, it was adventuresome for me and my typically mundane life.

So I walked away and was praying for him as I walked and the grass was nice to walk on and the weather was absolutely beautiful. I got back to my room and continued to pack. I remember I was throwing all my shoes into a big bag when I got a phone call. It was Gavin.

“Hello? :D”

“Hey, I’m h jvje fjseh n seiojef w”

“Um. What?”

“My taxi isn’t here yet and my bus leaves at 2:10..”

“You need a ride? I’ll be right there!”

“Uh, okay, I’m in front of [the ice cream shop].”

“Kseeyousoon!”

To clarify, his means of transportation to this faraway place where he lives is a greyhound bus, and to get to the greyhound bus station which is located downtown (our school is in a suburb of a big city), he has to take a taxi. And his taxi wasn’t showing up.

The time was 1:45. I picked up my keys, and literally sprinted out to my truck.

Thanking Jesus for the green light, I pulled up in front of [the ice cream shop] and he threw his things in the back of my truck, got in the passenger seat, and off we went, speeding toward the center of town.

He kept telling me how grateful he was and stuff. I felt a little like the hero of the day, because honestly, if I hadn’t done that for him, he would be way too late to get to the greyhound station in time, would have missed the bus and it would have been a huge mess. Who knows when he would have been able to catch another bus? I’m sure you understand the importance of him getting to the bus on time, and the fact that if I hadn’t picked him up, he never would have made it.

However, how could he call me with a problem like that and I turn him down? What a horrible friend I would be if I did not bother to take action when I was most certainly fully capable of doing so! So I put my whole heart, soul, and might into helping this dear friend of mine. After all, how could I not?

When I parked, he hugged me goodbye (again) and got his stuff out of the back of my truck, crossed the street, and I never saw him again.

I guess “I never saw him again” is pretty a melodramatic statement because that was, of course, only earlier today. But still.

I will miss Gavin a lot these next 4 months. I will miss his punny jokes that he makes up in the blink of an eye out of pure wittiness. I will miss his handsome face and dark eyes. I will miss his absolutely beautiful, ringing laughter. I will miss his hugs. I will miss how much he cares about me, and I will miss caring about him. I will miss his thoughtfulness; his contemplativeness. But we’ve agreed to keep in touch.

The problem with our society is that it has a very limited understanding of love. Everyone assumes that the word loves implies romantic feeling, but there is so, so, so much more to it than that. So when I say I love Gavin, I don’t mean I have a crush on him or anything dumb like that. I just mean I care about him incredibly deeply, and that he is very special to me, that I am willing to sacrifice almost anything for him. And so I would like to announce to the world not only that Gavin is one of my best friends, but that I love him. A lot.

Random thought because this is how my brain is treating me today: Wouldn’t it be cool if, instead of water bubbling up from the earth like a fresh mountain spring, sunshine bubbled up from the earth? Perhaps then, on dreary, rainy days, we could look up to the mountains and see a sunbeam shining down in the middle of the rain. Maybe then there would be rainbows in the middle of a storm!!

So.

I finally finished packing and started loading up my truck with my belongings. My parents showed up, and my brother, Sam, came too, which was a nice surprise. My brother will be 11 years old a week from today. We finished loading up the truck and the van that my parents drove and I turned in my key and that was that. I am going to miss my room a lot. I just feel like I have really enjoyed living there, with or without my roommate (she moved out halfway through the year), and I’ve jus gone through a lot in that room. So much has happened there and next year some other freshman will live there and they probably won’t care about it at all, the way I did. Why I care so much about a stupid room, I don’t know. I don’t usually get this sentimental. But I’m seriously going to miss that room. Plus I had an awesome view from the window.

Right before we left, I saw my two very good friends Marcus and Katelyn, and said goodbye to them. Katelyn and I hugged like normal people, but when Marcus hugged me, he picked me way up in the air, which made me laugh really loudly, then he started swinging me from side to side while he was hugging me in the air. It was positively delightful. Then we group-hugged, the three of us. It was wonderful. Moments like that should last forever. But they don’t. Oh well, there will be more like it! I love them both a lot.

Sam rode in my car with me, and my parents drove the van. We stopped halfway home at Burger King for dinner. I really don’t care for fast food much at all, but Sam and I had “mixed drinks” and grabbed a bunch of sugar packets, so, needless to say, it was a good ride home. It wasn’t long after ingesting our dinner and excessive sugar, some of which we dumped into our drinks, that we started belting out songs in a most comical and obnoxious manner, talking about extremely random things, and making strange noises to each other. I love my brother. A lot.

I got home and unloaded the car and talked to my sister and did some boring stuff and now I am sitting here writing this blog.

Hooray for my day! I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed living it, but I doubt you did. Sorry.

In conclusion, I love Gavin, Marcus, Katelyn, and Sam. A lot. Just to reiterate.

God bless

Psalm 118:24 This is the day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it[!!!]”