That's a title, I know. Sorry *hides*

I wanted it to be magic. I wanted a full semester of hope and nothing but me knowing who I was. But that's not what happened. 

I moved into my dorm and immediately started to think I'd made a mistake.

I went to the school I went to specifically for their government major. For their internships. For their foot in the door. But almost as soon as I walked in the door, I realized something. Majoring in government...that wasn't me anymore. That wasn't who I wanted to be. I didn't want to be a politician or a lawmaker or a policy maker. I didn't want to be in campaigns. There are many who do belong in that world, and I wish them well. But me? No.

No, I want light. Stories.

I briefly considered journalism. I picked up another class after one day of classes and got a job and was basically in wayyyyy over my head.

My thoughts were a mess. Friends? What were those? I called home daily for at least an hour a day. I was so desperate for some sort of...anything. Meaning. A reason. Dropping out became even more enticing. I thought about transferring. I went back to researching my second choice schools.

About halfway through the semester, my constitutional law converged into one of the most stressful events of my life: the schoolwide moot court tournament. If you don't know what moot court is, count yourself blessed. Basically, you dress up as a lawyer and you go argue a case to upperclassmen (or real judges, at the law school level) like you're at the Supreme Court. 

This was so much stress. So much anger. And yet one of my most distinct memories was just frustration that it kept me away from the highlight of my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: History class.

World history was a lifeline. a breath of fresh air in all the other stress. I went and I learned. I understood. I got excited.

And then one day I found myself in the history department head's office, pouring out my heart about government and not knowing what to do and needing a job and student loans and...

And that wonderful man looked me in the eye, this professor who wasn't in it for money or prestige but because he genuinely cared about his students, a genius, and he said, "You can get a job with a history degree."

With those words, with that reassurance, my world was transformed.

It was in the way I tutored a friend the morning before a quiz for history and saw the whole thing coming together in a storyline. It's in the characters of history, bright and brilliant people like anybody from a novel, but REAL and living. It's in knowing that without knowing the past, we'll repeat it--but also knowing that there's beauty, and hope, and that the darkest hour of human history is always behind us and before us both.  It's in seeing my Creator's fingertips throughout the timeline. It's in the hope of seeing how the world spins on.

I fell in love. Hard. Romantic love, the sort Taylor Swift would write a song about, the sort that makes you giddy and grin whenever you think about it. It's the kind of love that gets me ranting at the lunch table to a group of unimpressed friends of a friend. It's the love that takes my Saturday mornings and turns them into a chance to explore the niches of history, the little moments that we don't talk about. And yes, this is all about my soulmate. My degree. The hope I have for the future in loving a line of study, a subject, a line of work, a knowledge.

God brought that love to me and I can never thank Him enough for that.