Welp. This is Embarrassing.

I don't know what happened when I went to college, but I somehow went from being a person who rarely cries to being a human faucet at least once a week.
And this week was even worse than the new usual.
I still haven't wrapped my brain around the fact that I've left it all behind.  Not for a few weeks or even a few months, but for two whole years.  My heart is heavy with missing my friends, the dearest, most wonderful friends I've ever had, but at the same time it is light with the knowledge that I'm going to be exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I ought to be doing.

But I want to say to all of you who have listened to me, supported me, succored me over the last few years; THANK YOU.  You are of more worth to me than I think you probably ever realized. Every time you confided in me or I confided in you made me that much stronger.  You are amazing and courageous and each one of you has blessed my life more richly than I can express.

My best friend and I have a tradition of writing each other letters (which is convenient for now, yes?) and so she wrote me yesterday.  I sat down in the airport and unfolded that page and then realized it was probably a dreadful idea.  Within a few seconds I was sitting in a corner of the Salt Lake City airport, crying hard enough that I couldn't see the page.  Which is a little embarrassing, considering there were people all around me.

I honestly think I am one of the most blessed people in the whole world.  Which isn't to say that my life has been easy or free from worry or simple.  Rather, it's the friends I have who have made the difficulty and trouble easier to bear. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that has given everything a divine purpose, that reminds me that every tear and every knot in my heart has been there to teach me something.  I still love the quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland: "Surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed."  I know that He rejoices every time I rejoice, and mourns when I mourn, and cries with me in times like this, when I am "half agony, half hope." *  I don't know what I did to be so blessed so very much, but I know that I am, and in spite of what I have struggled through, I wouldn't ask for any other life but my own.

I just love all of you so much!  Thank you for being there for me and allowing me to be there for you.


*I mean in no way to compare my life to that of Captain Frederick Wentworth.  My brain just runs on Jane Austen programming, and the sentiment seemed appropriate when taken out of context.