I'm currently sitting in a barstool behind the counter of our coffee shop here on campus where I work during the week. I'm sitting here checking emails, Facebook, catching up on other blogs, and trying to study. As I sit here I can't help but think HOLY COW I am almost halfway done through college! Has it really been two years since coming to this amazing place that I call home?! This past Sunday I realized just how truly blessed I am to attend Hope. I have had late night adventures that I lost precious sleep over but I do not regret. I have met so many people that have become truly great friends. I've had bad days but the good ones are the only ones that stand out. I love playing out in the Pine Grove, riding our bikes to the beach with Shelby's brake on the entire way, playing pranks on everyone, late nights studying in the library sharing lots of laughter, picking up coffee when life gets hard for all of us, meeting at Lemonjello's when we all get back from Christmas Break to catch up on each other's lives, struggling to figure out what we are doing with our lives, and best of all spending time together just simply laughing and running around. I can't help but think that in two very short years I will miss these people and this place so incredibly much. I am so grateful for all the people I have gotten to know these past two years and can't wait to meet more the next two. Two things have kept me anchored and sane the past two years: the friends I have here and the friends and family I have at home. No doubt these past few months have been the hardest for me but I have survived because of all of them. I was talking with a girl this morning who is graduating on Sunday. She told me that it has hit her that she is leaving and she was so excited for the future but saddened to be leaving Holland, Michigan. I thought to myself what am I gonna say when I get asked that question four days before I graduate? Will I be sad? Will I be excited? Will I be scared? I would have to say that as of this moment, I would be so incredibly grateful for the things that I have learned here and for the people I've met and though I will miss them terribly those I have grown the closest with will stay with me and I will be so excited to move on to a new chapter in life. And I will always remember that the best decision of my life was to attend Hope College. College is meant to be a stepping stone, you live through it and you take the memories from it with you but you move on with your life. I will always be blessed to call Hope College home. Thanks for making it great, Hope College. Happy Summer, friends! Soak up the sunshine and relax! We made it through another year!
Lots of Love to you all,
B.
p.s. A poem about the journey...
| TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, | |
| And sorry I could not travel both | |
| And be one traveler, long I stood | |
| And looked down one as far as I could | |
| To where it bent in the undergrowth; | 5 |
| |
| Then took the other, as just as fair, | |
| And having perhaps the better claim, | |
| Because it was grassy and wanted wear; | |
| Though as for that the passing there | |
| Had worn them really about the same, | 10 |
| |
| And both that morning equally lay | |
| In leaves no step had trodden black. | |
| Oh, I kept the first for another day! | |
| Yet knowing how way leads on to way, | |
| I doubted if I should ever come back. | 15 |
| |
| I shall be telling this with a sigh | |
| Somewhere ages and ages hence: | |
| Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | |
| I took the one less traveled by, | |
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken |
