Home Again

I'm back in Vegas again. It was a hard decision to come home for summer term. But I decided I really needed a break from school, I was getting burnt-out, and by staying at school I wasn't really getting ahead. So we had finals last week, that wasn't too bad, and then my parents came and picked me up on Thursday. I realized then how much stuff I had as not all of it would fit in the car. Our car was completely stuffed, I felt like a pretzel, and we couldn't see each other, there was so much stuff in the way. But I am home now. My parents and my brother and I went to the temple on Saturday and we are going to try to go once a week, but since the Las Vegas temple will be closed for a month, we are going to drive up to St. George on Friday. I'm excited for that. Saturday we also went to my cousin's graduation party and a wedding reception. Sunday was Father's Day and it was nice to have good food and play games with my family again. I've also been reunited with my best friend Lexi and so we worked out together today. We are training for a triathlon.

It feels extremely weird being here though. I already miss Provo. I got here and it felt like waking up from a dream. For a little bit I wondered if Provo really happened, because everything was the same here. The sights, the sounds, even the smell of everything was the same. Like I had stepped into the past. It was so strange. I'm still not used to it. It's like, I've left that part of me behind, and I don't want to go back to it. I like it here, but I don't want to go back to the way I used to live, to the old Celeste. I learned so much in Provo. I felt like I became someone.

You see, at BYU, the majority of students go through an identity crisis for a period of time. Because you get there and those things that define you in high school-suddenly everyone has those. Everyone plays the piano, everyone's smart, everyone's friendly, everyone's spiritual. And you wonder "who is me? What makes me different?" And the beautiful thing is, you find out just what does make you different. The high school definitions are gone, and you really see who you are. You become someone. I realized that I am more than the shy girl who played the piano and got straight A's in high school. I realized that there is so much more to me than that, and I shouldn't limit myself to that definition of myself.

Not only that but I gained so much confidence in the process. I was always so scared of what people thought about me, but having roommates who were wild and crazy made me realize that the people who really matter in your life, your true friends, are the ones who don't care how weird you are. The more I acted myself around people, the more I realized that everyone has their own bit of crazy, their own weird, their own awkwardness, and so if someone can't get over my weird, then they just don't matter.

It took me a while to come to that conclusion winter semester, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to be myself with my Spring term roommates. But right from the start, as soon as I met my roommate Ashley, I decided I wasn't going to care about what she thought, and I wasn't going to beat myself up every time I thought I said something stupid. I was just myself around her, and immediately we hit it off and became like sisters. I couldn't have asked for a better roommate.

So you see, I feel like I became someone at college. I have posted plenty of things that I have learned at college on the blog before. And now that I am home, I hope that I can just keep progressing, keep becoming the person I am supposed to be. I am looking at this as a new challenge: being able to face the past but not become the past.

With that, I shall end with Disney's famous and beautiful saying "keep moving forward." And to myself I say "welcome home."