A Confession

If you know me, then you know that I am a graduate of Brigham Young University. I graduated in August 2010 majoring in Family Life and minoring in Music.

I had a great experience. I loved being there. My classes were amazing. My teachers were amazing.

I love that school and I am very proud to be a BYU alumni.

However, I have a little confession to make......

Before I attended BYU I was not a fan. I would even go so far as to say that I had a deep LOATHING for Brigham Young University.

Growing up in Provo was hard sometimes. You felt trapped. EVERYONE was Mormon. You were never really challenged and it was easy for my peers to just float along.

For some reason BYU represented a future that meant that I would be trapped forever. That I would never have major life experiences. I would always be in Provo.

This was so terrifying to me. I had some big dreams. I wanted to go to New York and be a big star. I wanted to have "real" life experiences. So I dreaded the thought of going to BYU of all places. A school full of "zoobies". People that were all the same.

I also couldn't stand the prospect of being stuck with the same people from elementary, middle, and high school for another four years! I never had many friends and I always had a hard time fitting in. So the last thing that I wanted was to go somewhere where people already knew me. I wanted to start fresh. Be who I wanted to be, instead of who people had already decided I was, whether or not that image they had created was who I truly was.

When it got time to applying for college I realized that my options were few and far between. Essentially it was BYU, BYU-Idaho, or BYU-Hawaii. I hoped that I would get into Hawaii but that didn't happen. I was accepted into both BYU and BYU-I. I decided very quickly that Idaho was it. That there was NO way I was staying in Provo. So I visited the school a few times. It was nice. But it just didn't feel right. AT ALL.

A few things happened (like hitting a deer and breaking down near Logan, UT) and I eventually decided that I would attend BYU after all.

At first it was like eating something that you knew would give you a horrible taste in your mouth. In fact I didn't enjoy my first semester very much. But then I married my sweetheart. And things slowly started to change. I took one class after we got married and mostly just worked. Then we decided to take a leap and move to Colorado to help my brother in-law after his wife died.

Colorado was and is still one of the most life changing experiences I have ever had. I grew a lot. I realized what was important and I realized what I wanted to do. We both did. So after 6 months in Colorado we ventured back to Provo to start a new saga.

BYU was totally different this time. The campus was so beautiful I realized. The people were actually really nice and came from many different walks of life. Sure I occasionaly saw people that I knew from high school, but it was never a big deal. I didn't let it be so. I loved my classes. I loved going through the college experience with my husband. Every tiny thing about BYU had changed for me.

In reality, I had changed. I was no longer the person I had once been. And this new person was perfectly suited for the BYU experience.