Growing up, my sisters and I would spend hours and hours building elaborate houses out of Legos. We would be playing happily until my rambunctious brothers came through and destroyed our hard work in a matter of seconds. We would pout for a bit and then my mother would come into the room. She would tell my brothers that it wasn’t nice to destroy our houses, and then turn to us and calmly say

“Now you get to rebuild them and make them even better.”

Now, Legos may not be the best representation of a life lesson, but I have a good reason for bringing it up. But first I have a little bit of a background story to give to you.

In the spring of 2014, I graduated from high school. Feeling on top of the world and excited for what my next adventure had in store for me, I headed into the summer. That year, I had probably the worst summer of my life. My job sucked, my relationship looked as if it were coming to an end, I didn’t go on vacation, I had no cheer practice to keep me busy, and to top it off I didn’t start school until the end of September which only meant that all of my friends would be starting school a month earlier than I would.

By the time September 22 came around, I was tired of waiting. I had built college up in my mind to be a grand adventure. I was going to head to Chicago and never look back. The first few weeks of living in downtown Chicago were amazing. We did fun things and we saw fun things and the best thing about it was that it was not my small hometown.

Those first two weeks were what I had dreamt up in my mind since December when I had chosen to attend Robert Morris University. But then it happened. The night that threw me back into reality. It was late on a Wednesday night and we had turned out the lights to go to bed. My eyes had not been closed for more than a half an hour before my roommate had turned on her light and yelled “Amanda!”

I jumped up to see that we had a two-inch puddle of water seeping into our room from under the bathroom door. The maintenance guys for the building came and took care of the water, leaving an obnoxiously loud fan in our room to dry it out. We finally got into bed and I slept for about three hours before waking up for class the next day.

That day, I was sitting in class working on my project when I realized how bored I was. I remember thinking to myself, “Is this what a graphic designer does all day? Is this what I’m going to have to do for the rest of my life?” That afternoon, I walked back to my dorm very slowly. I took the long way and looked around the city.

That was the day that I started to miss the rolling fields of corn and soybeans. I missed the grass and the big trees that grew wild and free. I realized how dirty the city was. I started to resent the way that the city smelled and I remember being overcome by a feeling of suffocation.

I quickly turned and headed back to my dorm building. I was out of breath by the time that I got to my room. My roommate was still at class and I was happy for the silence of the empty room. I took a shower and then sat on my bed and thought about the experience that I had just had.

I began to think about what my options were and decided that I would just suck it up and it might get better. I fell asleep at 4 pm that afternoon and didn’t wake up until it was time for class the next day. I got out of bed and headed to class, only to realize that I was bored in my photography class too. Photography has always been a passion of mine, I had been excited about this class for so long, and here I was hating my life sitting there waiting for class to end. In that moment, I knew that I didn’t belong here. This place was making me hate the one thing that I have loved since I was a kid. The one thing that I thought that I was really good at.

That night, I called my mom. As soon as I heard her voice I began to cry. I am not a person that cries easily. I hold my emotions in for years sometimes. But, here I was, sitting in the floor lounge and sobbing into the phone, not saying a word. My soft-spoken mother waited patiently for me to catch my breath and then asked me what was wrong.

I wasn’t crying because I wasn’t happy there, I wasn’t crying because I was hurt, I was crying because I had failed. My whole life I prided myself on taking my time and making the right decision, I didn’t let things get to me. I was crying because here I was, having made a huge mistake on what I thought was the biggest decision of my life.

I hated myself for it. I chose a private school that was good for graphic design and not for a whole lot else. How could I have been so stupid? I didn’t understand why I was brought to this point in my life. My mom gently told me that this was my life and it was my decision.

Great. More decisions, not only can I not make decisions to save my life but the one decision that I did make had just gone up in flames. I had no idea what I would do. When I hung up the phone with my mom, I quickly called my best friend. She answered with her cheerful voice and we talked for hours about how we didn’t know how to figure out life.

When I finally decided to transfer schools, the process of unraveling my big mistake began. We had to unenroll me from school for the next term and try to get out of my housing contract. These tasks proved to be very challenging. I was worried the whole time that I was making another mistake. I prayed that I wasn’t, but I didn’t trust my own decisions at this point.

Soon, Thanksgiving came around. This marked the end of my journey at Robert Morris. It also marked the dreadful day that I would have to explain to my family that I had made a huge mistake and was leaving Chicago. I took a deep breath and eventually made it to January.

That semester, I started class at Illinois State University. I had no major and no excitement. I felt like an outsider, I had missed the freshman fun that comes with the fall semester and everyone already had their friends and were settled into normal college life.

That April, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was on a walk and found Ropp Agriculture Building. It was fairly hot outside so I stepped inside to get a drink of water. There weren’t many people there but the atmosphere just felt right. That night I decided that I was going to major in agriculture. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I just knew that that was where I belonged.

Heading into my sophomore year of college. I felt like I was starting over again. The first week of school, I attended the department’s welcome back cookout and joined 2 organizations that would end up changing my life that year. I could never have imagined what that year would have in store for me, all that I knew was that I was home.

By the end of that year, I had been named the ISU Department of Agriculture’s Outstanding Sophomore. I was on the executive board of three student organizations and was serving as a campus ambassador for a national organization. I went into summer with two internships and a smile on my face. I was back to my normal self, my ambitious and excited self. I was finally happy.

My college career has been a whirlwind of adventure so far. In high school, I would have never imagined that I would be here with a major in agriculture. It never even crossed my mind. I was so focused on being involved in high school life that I failed to recognize that my passion was right there staring me in the face.

There is a reason for everything that happens and I know that there was a reason that I went to Chicago. Had I not gone to Robert Morris, I doubt that I would be where I am today. I don’t think that I could have found my true passion. I have learned so much in the past two years, things that I could never have learned from any other experience and I am thankful for everything that I have been through.

So, what do Legos have to do with my story? My life fell apart, shattered into a million pieces in front of my face. Through this whole experience, my mother just sat back and calmly told me that it was my choice whether or not I would stay at Robert Morris. She knew that I knew the answer, she had taught it to me years ago. Sometimes you have to let things (even your dreams) fall to pieces around you, but when that happens you have to take a deep breath, pick those pieces up, and rebuild them into something better than you could have ever imagined before.