Freshman Antics

BYU is tearing down Heritage Halls (Freshman housing).  The rubble-making started about a year ago.  Next in line is building 8. Penrose Hall.  A very special place that a small group of girls picked for no particular reason at all.  I picked it because it sounded the pretties, Penrose, why not?  And it was right near the middle.  Little did I know, with such reasoning, that this would be the place.  This would be the place that would change my life forever.  It became the place where I grew up as I sometimes acted like a little kid, the place where I claimed independence while learning to sometimes lean on other people.  Here, I met my best friend(s). Here, I have the fondest memories, and some of my worst.
So we all met up at that special place, spent one last hurrah! before, after three years, we go our separate ways, and this place can only be kept inside of us, preserved by too many albums on facebook.  We drove through the parking lot where we would have dance parties in the bed of a Truck.  Walked along the sidewalk which we decorated with chalk.  We reenacted roommate pictures outside with an updated wardrobe.  We entered the lobby where we "weren't allowed to have dance parties or watch movies", and went out on the balcony where we would release our craziness.  I remember 1 song dance parties in the middle of late-night study sessions.  There was the hallways that we filled with out mattresses on Friday nights, the walls covered in butcher paper and favorite quotes.  Our first discovery was the panic cupboard, I ended up there on the first day.  Our true bonding experience was a death-march to Albertson's, we only walked a few miles in the wrong direction, and took the short way home.  We had shopping sprees at the mall at the end of every semester, and sometimes in the middle when we were sad at boys.  I remembered the spot where my first college boyfriend kissed me.  That year we were in the middle of a prank war, and found a belt in the middle of a cake.  There was the grass where we always brought our food, pot and all and had a picnic on warm Spring afternoons, where we devoured Creamery shakes, played soccer, jammed on the guitar, laid out under the stars, rolled up as a burrito.  I remembered family dinners every night, and after dinner left overs for our seventh roommate.  Every week was planned family meeting on Sunday night and one day a week we floundered.  There was a little spot out back where the water would collect when it rained, it formed a small lake which I jumped over one night with someone else.  And our back steps were covered in brownie, one time we forgot the eggs and ended up throwing the dessert at each other instead of eating them.  At the end of the hall we had a giant family clock, at one point I was on a date for at least a week.  Through the kitchen window we posted messages, asked to borrow rice cookers and wished happy holidays.  Through the kitchen window we could see right into the guys apartments; they always kept their blinds down.  One week we rearranged the furniture and made a "big bed" to have one giant slumber party, I stayed up until 3 am smiling about potentials.  We shared a back door with our neighbors, soon enough we had 12 roommates and a heart attack one February morning.  We instated Easter Mexican Fiestas.  It was the year that Shaun White won the Olympic gold medal before he even took his last run.  We all wore different colored chucks, matching plaid, and ski goggles when we cooked.  Our bedroom doors locked, and sometimes we got locked out.  My roommate and I would have adventures late at night, trying different beauty products, facials, nail polish, hair dye.  One incident went amiss and someone's hair ended up orange, so naturally, we all dressed in orange, ate only orange food, and threw a party; there was more orange than cones in the construction zone.  We used to get all dressed up and go out, after cheering at every single home football game.  Somedays I went to the Creamery more than once, more than twice, more than three times... My roommate and I covered our walls, and built a giraffe army.  We had "funky jello" in our fridge for an entire semester.  We screamed aaaaaaaahhhhhhh at the end of every word.  Every inch of the place was tainted with memories, and it all came chaotically back, in certain spots, snippets, still frames, faces, moments, ideas, songs, jokes, quotes, and laughs.
Walking around that place watching all of my memories, it seemed so far away, and I felt so big;  I guess I've done a lot of growing since then.  And now life moves even further on, even further away, but Here was a good starting place, a place that sent me in the right direction.