Chasing Butterflies

Sunday night was kind of exciting as we packed our backpacks and made our school lunches. As much fun as we've had all Summer, I've really been missing my structured and scheduled school life. The first day of classes was...stressful. I'm packing every hour possible with credits in order to push myself and try to graduate by April. Doable? Yes. Survivable? Debatable. But regardless of all the stress and work this semester is going to bring, I'm starting to get really sad about leaving BYU. Granted...I still have two whole semesters, 8 whole months, and a whole lot of homework and test in between...but I just love it here and don't want to leave. Hopefully by April I'll be ready to let go.

I'm taking some "very procrastinated" freshman generals this semester, and with those generals, comes a lot of freshman. I smiled pretty big when there were only about 5 of us seniors in American Heritage with 250 students. Oh, did I mention that in 3 of my GE classes I was hit on by 18 year old freshman boys? Obviously they didn't see my wedding ring, but it was pretty fun to see their faces when I told them I was a senior. They felt pretty stupid, poor boys. But I'll take the compliments said that I looked like a freshman.

I sat by a freshman girl in chemistry, which turned out to be her first class on her first day of college. She was really bubbly and asked if I didn't mind giving her recommendations on teachers and classes to take. We talked for about 15 minutes as she took down notes of everything I said. It wasn't until after class that a lot of things started hitting me. Was it really FOUR years ago that I was that little freshman sitting in a room of 200 strangers and feeling a little new and scared? I remember being in her exact shoes, asking for teachers, help to and from classes, getting lost a lot, not knowing what words like "blackboard" and "iclicker" were. And now here I am, four years later. I don't feel old, and I don't feel like this is really my fourth year here.

It started sinking in even more when I walked into my chemistry lab and turned to find a guy who was one of my close friends freshman year sitting next to me. He had just returned from his mission 1 month ago, and he was in disbelief that I was a senior, graduating, and married. It was a lot of fun to catch up and laugh about all our good memories freshman year. I just don't want to believe my time here is on the downhill.

There are so many incredible things I have experienced here. BYU truly has shaped my character and my testimony, and made me much more of a person that I was four years ago when I stepped onto campus. I've learned so much more about life, about the gospel, about the world, about education, about families, about serving, and most importantly...about myself. It's astounding.

I've been so stressed trying to figure out my schedule and fit in all my classes and credits to graduate. I've been so uptight about making everything work, but the past few days have really got me realizing that everything will work out the way it needs to. As long as I'm living right and working as hard as I can, everything else will fall into place. A really neat quote I heard a few weeks ago went something like, "Stop chasing the butterflies and trying to catch them in a net; instead, STOP, and let them land on your shoulder." I want to make these next few months the most incredible I can. I want to take life a day at a time and simply STOP to enjoy every moment. Whether those moments are hard, or sad, or happy, I am willing to take on whatever comes my way. I want to make these last two semesters at BYU memorable so I don't look back and regret them. Being at BYU is such an incredible priviledge and I am so grateful that God planned BYU into my life experiences.