Leaving Provo

I've been a leeeetle bit emotional lately. This is weird for me because I don't tend to have a lot of emotions....

I cried over a State Farm commercial the other night.

I'll admit it. I'm starting to get way nostalgic about leaving Provo. I know some people have had less than pleasant experiences at BYU, but I've loved almost everything about it. I wasn't sad when I left home to come to BYU, but I'm definitely getting sad about leaving.

Things I'm going to miss:
The beautiful mountains and the waterfalls.
Being a phone call away from a hangout with my friends
Being able to give directions based on N,S,E,W
The beautiful campus
Dry winter (makes the cold much more bearable, although I do go through a lot of lotion)
Dry summers (humidity is not my friend)
Living around a bunch of people who are in the same phase of life
Hanging out with Shelbey every Tuesday during devotional
Greg's hockey games
The perfect grid system
The big Y on the mountain
BYU sports (live)
The Tanner Building
Free lunch from Beta Alpha Psi
Watching TV shows in the Jr. Core Grader's room when I didn't want to do homework
Greg driving me to and from school
Our teeny little apartment with its quirky green stove
Being so close to Greg's siblings who are always down for a game night
Being so close to my nephews and niece!
All the special places from meeting Greg and falling in love
Knowing my way around like the back of my hand
Being comfortable leaving our apartment unlocked when we leave for a few hours (yes... I have fallen into that naive trap)

I'm mostly just going to miss the comfort. I've lived here for five years! I have this place figured out. I know that, with time, I will feel just as comfortable in NE, but it's still hard knowing I won't feel comfortable for quite awhile. There are so many unknowns about Nebraska!! What grocery store will we like? What restaurants will we like? What kind of bugs are there? What will the weather be like (it will be different from Utah and Georgia!)? Will we have any friends? Will there be people our age? Gah!

I'm comfortable disagreeing with people and sharing my opinion... probably a little too  comfortable. But I don't speak up about my controversial opinions a lot. I write things here and there on my blog, but I rarely discuss them with people who aren't my friends (and my friends tend to agree with me, so that's an easy discussion).

Part of my silence is because I can be kind of apathetic - there aren't a lot of issues that I am so hung up on that I'm willing to go out and advocate to change. This isn't something I'm proud of, it's basically laziness.

Another reason is that I'm not extremely tactful. I don't know how to say what I want to say and it ends up coming out really harsh and blunt... not at all educated or sincere. I have a hard time drawing upon why I feel the way I do - I just word vomit.

My silence has spared me from the line of fire that most Mormon feminists face. I haven't argued with many people about these issues because they've really never come up. That's a major perk of people not knowing your opinions, or at least not knowing how strong they are. I read blogs and facebook posts from people who do speak up, and they deal with so much pain and rejection.

Today I spoke up. Way too forcefully, as usual. But I tried to explain what I felt.

And I fell on my face.