At long last...

I've been a month overdue in writing about this because its taken me that long to wrap my head around it.  My last few days at school were hectic and strange.  Thursday night I said goodbye to Phil and the MTC.  It hurt.  Phil left a few hours before my shift was over so I hugged him hard and promised to come visit soon.  Later that night when all our work was done I let myself into his office and just sat and cried.  I left a note and my nametag where he would see it first thing and refilled his candy bottle.  I never talked about that job much, mostly because I never really knew how.  I know it's hard to believe that something so mundane can mean so much.  But when it really came down it there was nothing ordinary about it.  I walked in a petrified freshman that first day and Phil teased me about dressing up to interview as a custodian.  I walked out completely unaware that I'd just found the bit of salvation to get me through the next few years.  I needed it so much.  I needed someone to jerk my ponytails and twit me about my endless need to adjust my pants and listen to me talk.  I needed a crew of ready made friends and someone to encourage who struggled just as much as me.  I had a place to go.  Always.  During the weeks when all I wanted to do was sleep even though I dreamed about the River Ouse and rocks in my pockets and I didn't do a stitch of homework and every muscle in my body was clenched so hard it hurt, the simple work and the simple companionship soothed me enough to allow me one more day, one more week.  I'm not sure I could have lasted out that long, awful year without it.  I finished my cry, gathered up my things, and started the walk out to my car.  I'd hardly made it ten steps down the hallway before I started to sob, this queer half laugh half moan.  It was freezing cold and I stopped at the corner and looked back.  I've never been so grateful for something in all my life.  I went straight to bed.

The next morning I had one paper left to turn in on campus and a long list of things to do before driving home.  I ran up to campus in the snow.  That was really something.  I must have been really something too.  I've always liked to walk in snow like that:  misty and thick.  It makes me feel half hidden and secretive.  So I tend to allow more private facial expressions show through.  Its probably not a very common sight to see a girl on campus during finals week with her face tipped up to the snow and look around her with such a broad smile plastered on her face.  But I did.  I deposited that paper and hurried off to finish my private graduation ceremonies.  First was a trip to the cemetery to visit Nana and Pa.  At the beginning of every year I've visited their graves to kick off the new semester.  Though they were gone long before I started college they both had their roles in it.  Pa placed an emphasis on schooling, taught his kids, and one of his kids taught me.  He's part of the reason I chose BYU.  And the knowledge that Nana liked to write inspired me to try it, and lo and behold I loved it, starting me on the path to an English degree.  I wanted to tell them that I'd done it.  I'd really done it.

After the cemetery came the biggest part.  It's common for BYU students to hike the Y all the time, but for some reason I'd managed to avoid it for a few years.  In the end I decided I would save it for my last week on campus.  My own private graduation.  And that's what I did.  It was so misty as I climbed the trail all alone, I couldn't see more than a few yards ahead of or behind me.  The trail is made up of numbered switchbacks. On switchbacks 1...2...3...I lost sight of the neighborhood below me.  4....5...6...I stopped looking down.  7...8...9...I started looking up.  10...11...12...I knew I must be close.  The trail ended and I was lost in the mist and snow and I couldn't figure out where the Y was supposed to be.  I walked a few more feet and finally the oddly shaped snow patches moved into a perspective that made sense...I was standing at the very top in the v of the Y.  I was the only person on the whole mountain.  I'd finally done it.  I stayed up there for a long, long time and laughed and danced and screamed and cried and prayed.  Then I ran all the way back down.  12...11...10...the mist thinned.   9...8...7...so did the memories of my fears.  6...5...4...was complete and total satisfaction.  And then at switchback 3 the mist was gone and the sun came out just for a minute, right over campus.  And I got a last bird's eye view of the place I'd learned to love and hate.  And 3...2...1...I went HOME!