Mizzou-rah!

I knew I wanted to go to the University of Missouri-Columbia (affectionately nicknamed Mizzou) when I was in junior high - back when I decided to become a lawyer.  I'd get it done in 3 years and go straight into law school there. 

What I had not planned on was falling - HARD - for a guy I worked with the Spring of my Senior Year of high school...on the tail-end of the Val Kilmer lookalike.  This one (who we'll call Craig) was my friend first.  He advised me against Val and all the other douchebags like him.  He called me out on my crap and made me laugh.  And when we finally decided to date, after a year of working together, we clicked.  Perfect couple and very cute.  He drove me to Mizzou a month before school was to start so that he could see my dorm and we could find places around town where we could go on dates when he'd come up on the weekends.

And then two weeks before I packed my bags to head to Columbia - out of nowhere - he broke up with me.  No explanation.  Just....done.

I was devastated and immediately knew that it simply had to be the distance.  He told me as much when, a month later, he came to visit me in my dorm for my birthday - a weekend of lots of affection that didn't belong outside of an actual relationship with me.  On the drive home, he called me to tell me the weekend had been a big mistake. 

A month into starting school at my dream campus, I began to plan how I could get back home more often - convinced that if I could solve the distance problem, he'd come to his senses.  I came home every weekend, and second semester planned all of my classes to be Tuesday/Thursday classes so that I only had to be in Columbia 3 days a week.  I was miserable. 

And he did not reconcile with me. 

Having suffered my first heartbreak, I decided it was better to just get back closer to home, period.  I transferred my second year and lived in North St. Louis County, at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.  There I rented an apartment with my best friend from high school (who had transferred herself), tried to make friends, got a job at Victoria's Secret (the bath soap side - not the sexy side), and studied for my LSAT exam to get in to law school. 

I even dated Craig again for a brief time.  But by the time he came around to wanting me again, I realized I had grown past him.  I had dated someone else in the interim (again, I fell hard for that one, as would become my pattern) and realized that he and I would never work long-term.  He would forever be stuck in our home town, and I was on to bigger things.  (Little did I know that I would eventually want to go back to that small town).

Yes, I finished in 3 years.  Yes, I got in to law school (2 actually - including Mizzou - but more on why I didn't even consider it later).  Yes, I made a few friends with whom I'm still friends.  But most importantly, I fell in love with a city that I could explore on my own, learn its history and call a second home.

I found St. Louis.