I had no roadmap, no guidebook, no inherited wisdom for navigating college.

Mom never went. Dad took a couple semesters, but based on his stories, the only thing he majored in was Not Getting Caught Street Racing. Alan and Jason each tried the community college but quit when they realized they knew more about computers than the instructors who were supposed to be teaching them.

But it was fine. I wasn’t really going for the education anyway. I was there until I found my fate—my man. That was the expectation. The cultural objective. The Mormon version of “higher learning.”

So, I decided to be proactive and devised an ingenious plan—equal parts strategy, science experiment, and romantic delusion. Whenever I met a cute guy, I’d tell him I was working on a “project” to learn one specific phrase in as many languages as possible.

Then I’d casually ask if he’d learned a language on his mission.

In my head, this was flawless.

Reason one: it separated the returned missionaries—marriageable—from the boys who hadn’t left yet—adorable, but useless to my long-term goals. If he had learned another language, he’d light up like a Christmas tree and start conjugating verbs at me. If he hadn’t, he’d still proudly declare he served in Wisconsin or West Virginia or some other aggressively beige stateside mission—either way, I’d know he was in the pool.

Reason two: it let me gauge his sense of humor immediately.

Because the phrase was: “Kiss me, you fool.”

Shockingly, this plan did not go exactly as planned.
I did learn how to say it in twenty-six languages. And I learned how to interpret “no” in all twenty-six. I also learned there were plenty of people who spoke another language who weren’t RMs—one of them being a very enthusiastic man who chased me around a parking lot trying to take me up on the offer. He never caught me, but boy, did he try.

In the end, it became obvious that the majority of guys at Ricks were not interested in a big-bosomed, seemingly confident, chatty girl who—by their standards—was aggressively forward.

If they only knew.

And speaking of big-bosomed, that first semester I finally started eating like a human being again. And of course, I put on a little weight—primarily in what polite society calls “the bust” and what I shall call “the chesticles.” I blossomed into a 34DDD faster than you can say “chesticles,” which—ironically—became very hard for people not to mention.

And right around the time my upper half made its grand Broadway debut, I received the next chapter of my higher education: living with other girls.

The apartment had three bedrooms—two girls in each—plus two bathrooms with one giant shared vanity, and a communal kitchen/living room. Cute. Cozy. A sleepover that never ends and slowly becomes psychological warfare.

When I arrived, I discovered that four of my roommates were all quasi-local—friends from the nearby metropolis of Rigby, population: potatoes. The fifth was my actual roommate, Melissa from Texas, who owned her own computer (fancy) and had a boyfriend back home. I rarely saw her. I assume she spent most of her time emailing him, or whatever you did on computers besides accidentally downloading malware.

Mostly it was just the standard, run-of-the-mill roommate annoyances:

They wouldn’t wash their dishes.
They’d eat my food.
They did zero housework.
They used the toilet with the door open like it was performance art.
They stole my NyQuil and chugged it to get drunk.
They refused—REFUSED—to lock the front door.

You know. Normal stuff.

One day the girls in the next apartment decided they wanted to watch one of my movies—so, since our door wasn’t locked (WHY WOULD IT BE), they let themselves in and took it.
And the DVD player.
And the TV.
Because apparently my living room was Blockbuster—but free.

When I came home from class and freaked out about being robbed, everyone acted like I was the dramatic one. Oh, silly Diana, thinking personal property is personal.

So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when Miss NyQuil got kicked out of school and left in the night, taking all my pots, pans, plates, utensils, and food with her. Despite each of us having our own cupboard—and there was no universe in which she thought ALL of that was hers. Honestly? By that point I was impressed she didn’t take my pajamas while I slept in them.

The remaining girls launched a prank war with an apartment of boys in our ward. The guys came into our unlocked apartment (OF COURSE) and took all the labels off our canned food. They even added a few cans of unlabeled dog food for fun. So, we had several mystery dinners where we opened cans and divined our fate like culinary fortune tellers.

We retaliated by breaking into their apartment one night, stealing their shower curtains, and turning off the water heater. Then we came home and left them a harmonized voicemail, sung to the tune of You Are My Sunshine:

“The other night boys, while you were sleeping,
we came and stole your shower sheets.
We were so quiet, you can’t deny it.
Now you bathe without any heat.”

Then they plastic-wrapped our toilets. Classic. It was all fun and games until they tied our front door handle to the railing so we couldn’t exit the apartment and cut our power. Our alarms didn’t go off, we were late for class, and we had to find someone to liberate us. I decided that was enough and demanded a truce.

Because I wasn’t being “social enough”—mostly just doing homework and trying not to get burgled—my roommates occasionally dragged me to things.

They had to perform a musical number in their home ward and roped me into singing soprano. And I have to admit—they could harmonize like angels. Angels who enjoyed spending evenings pulling out their leg hairs with tweezers.

They also hauled me out country dancing. They’d French braid my hair, then curl and spray my bangs into a giant claw so I would “blend in.” They taught me the line dances and partner dances and blasted country music in the apartment like it was a hostage negotiation tactic. They even had a life-size cardboard cutout of Garth Brooks propped in the hallway that scared the hell out of me more times than I will publicly admit.

One day I was walking across campus when a guy ran up, grabbed me, and demanded to know my weight. I told him—because apparently that was information we were just giving out—and he immediately picked me up and launched me into the air. Mid-spin he yelled instructions at me, which I did NOT understand, and I nearly landed on my head.

I responded the only way my body knew how: hysterical laughter.

He laughed too, apologized for being an impulsive human trebuchet, and ushered me inside where they were holding Big Band Swing Club. This was right after a GAP commercial resurrected Lindy Hop, so it was the cool thing to do. His friends were trying to teach him lifts and tricks when I was unfortunate enough to walk by. To make up for the attempted homicide, he taught me the basics.

Of course, it was one of those aggressively wholesome events where boys and girls hop around a fully lit gym floor, always at arm’s length, as if Jesus Himself is chaperoning. But still—way more fun than country dancing.

And that’s when I caught the jitterbug. I started swing dancing regularly after that.

I struggled in Rexburg—there was not a whole lot to do. I drove home a LOT. Probably every other weekend. My folks joked that I drove the speed of light because I’d call to say I was coming and show up ten minutes later. Word got around that I was making the trip to Utah County often, and somehow my name and phone number spread. Suddenly I was the secret underground railway smuggling kids between Mormon communities.

I got calls from strangers asking for rides. And even if they usually helped pay for gas, I hated it—they expected me to accommodate their schedule, pick them up, drive them to wherever they were staying, pick them up again, drop them off at their apartments—while I was supposed to help carry luggage, listen to their music, and stop at every miserable rest stop along the way.

NO. I just want to go and be gone.
Man, I am grumpy.
But people still wanted rides.

I’m a little surprised I didn’t get kicked out of school for my lack of church attendance—I was driving on Sundays more often than not. But every day at Ricks felt like Sunday anyway. Every class opened with a prayer:

“Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, thank you for the chance we have to be here in American Studies—please inspire us to see your hand in the creation of this country. Also, bless us that we do well on our test today. We thank thee again for all our many blessings. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

And then an hour later we were just as thankful for Geology 101.

I had one class—Theater History—that was required for my major. It was right after lunch in a cold, dark basement—the green room under the main stage of the Eliza R. Snow Building. The professor must have been tenured because he was terrible. The entire class failed.

Every session was held in the dark with a film projector showing images up front. He’d sit in back and drone in a quiet, bored voice, describing painfully dry history. I often volunteered to turn the knob to change the slides just so I’d stay awake. Half the class fell asleep.

And the other half of the time he did.

He had narcolepsy. The college knew. His driver’s license had been revoked, and this very portly, older gentleman was reduced to riding a bicycle to campus—which was a sight. But he still taught. And the tests were based on the lecture. The lectures we didn’t get half the time because he was snoring.

In the end the school realized that failing the entire class wasn’t ideal and adjusted grades on a curve. I got the highest score: a B+. They could have adjusted harder, frankly. Stupid old man ruined my 4.0 GPA.

Even though I had followed a gaggle of people to Ricks, none of us ever connected up there. Maybe we were busy. Or maybe we weren’t actually friends—just “geographically convenient acquaintances.” Though in fairness, this was the dawn of the cellphone era. Dad had taken me to R.C. Willey to get my first sturdy, reliable Nokia so I could call if I had trouble on the four-hour drive home. No one had my number. And Google didn’t exist to help them find it.

But I found other friends. And I say “found” intentionally. I am not good at making friends. Unless there’s an instant spark, it’s hopeless.

I was lucky to meet my people in Idaho.

Amber, I met in a theater class. She caught me making up bizarre hand gestures and rhymes to memorize material. After I taught her my tricks, she got 100% on the test and asked if we could study together. We became buddies. She’d come over to my apartment to watch movies (once I had repossessed my TV) and we’d eat painfully large amounts of food—splitting a large pizza or a chocolate sheet cake—while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail and cackling.

Cami was another instant-click friendship. And, as it turned out, also family. She was from Provo, and I recognized her uncommon last name as one of my ancestors’. Yup—we were relatives. Distant, but still. We’d sit quietly doing homework together and watched the whole five-hour, thirty-three-minute Pride and Prejudice in one sitting. We called each other backwards names—she was Imac and I was Anaid. She came with me on many of my drives home, where we belted songs and laughed ourselves sick.

She convinced me to sign up for summer semester so we could room together. In the dorms we stacked our beds without thinking through the physics and nearly sent her flying out a second-story window. But she didn’t die. Even though for a minute she thought I was trying to kill her. As clever as I am, I would plan a more sophisticated murder than that.

Then there was Reed. I met him while roller-skating around the boys’ dorm. Reed was standing in a doorway talking to friends. I rolled up, joined the conversation, and they let me stay. Something about this jolly fellow just called to me. I think it was his butt. He had a beautiful round caboose just begging to be goosed. And being the accommodating soul that I am, I reached out and squeezed.

He immediately fell in love.
And I can’t blame him. I was adorable.

Sadly, I met him after the first summer semester had ended, and I was only staying an extra couple weeks to do stage makeup for a play I hadn’t gotten cast in. I’d be leaving soon and not returning until fall semester.

We made the most of it—hung out a few times, usually with Cami as our chaperone, flirting shamelessly.

After a couple weeks at home I got restless and decided to go back to Rexburg. I invited Megan to come with me so she could meet my people. And I was a giant idiot.

There was SOME GUY up there—whose name and face have been erased by time and the mercy of Lord—whom I was trying (unsuccessfully) to woo. In my desperation to charm this Chad, I essentially shoved Megan into Reed’s lap and left them to entertain themselves.

And thus began our very, very long history of missed connections.

He thought I’d brought her to deflect him. She thought I’d brought her to set them up.

That wasn’t my intention, but as previously established, I was a giant idiot.

When we climbed into the car to leave, Megan announced Reed had kissed her.

And my little heart broke.
Just a little.