Home away from Home

I’m going to forewarn you, this post is going to be a bit sappy, a bit more personal, and a bit more focused on a specific part of my own life. So, it may not relate to you or have direct application to any aspect of your life, but maybe you can get something out of it nonetheless.

When I ended high school, I felt extremely distraught. My entire life I had known that I wanted to go to college and that I had wanted to go away for college, but I honestly just never expected it to happen. I remember something I wrote in my journal April of 2022, a month before graduation: “Graduation: the inevitable thing that happens to everyone, but we never expect to happen to us.” And this was exactly how I felt.

Going into college in the fall of 2022, I felt entirely alone. The moment my mom and brother left Liberty University’s campus, I did not know where to go or what to do. So, I sat on my bed and waited. I waited on that bed for months for something (I’m not quite sure what) to happen. During those first few months of college, which I’m sure most college freshmen will relate to this, I spent a lot of my money. Therefore, my parents decided I needed to start looking for a job. I then got the email that would change the course of my college life. “I would like to extend the invitation to have you interview for the slope position you have applied for…” I did not have a car, but a friend saw me from her car waiting on the sidewalk for an “On Demand Ride” and offered to drive me up the mountain for my interview.

“After much consideration, we have decided to move forward with your application.” After being offered the position, I got very ill with the ‘freshman flu’ and went home for the weekend. I had planned to get my passport from home in order to provide two forms of identification for the HR office but completely forgot. They told me that if I was not able to acquire two forms of identification I would not be able to take the job and would have to wait until January to reapply and go through the process again, as the offices were closing the next day.

I walked out of the HR office, and despite it pouring down rain, I sat on the sidewalk, called my mom, and sobbed my eyes out. I felt weak, discouraged by yet another disappointment during my first few months of college, and I simply wanted to go home (which I told my mother again). She told me to pray, ask one of my friends to borrow her car, go to the Social Security office, and request a new SSN card. Somehow in order to do this I only needed one form of identification, and so I ended up getting a new one that same day. Even though I kept experiencing inconvenience after inconvenience, things kept working out in order for me to work at Snowflex.

I started my job the following week: “The hiring proposals we have submitted for you have been completed, and we would like to officially welcome you to the Slope Operations team at Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre!” November 8th, 2022. And this changed college for me.

People ask me why when I post my BeReals at Snowflex I caption them, “home!🏡” or some variation of this. My answer: Snowflex became a place I could feel safe while I was in college. I felt so out of place in the dorms, walking around campus, in the dining hall, but at Snowflex I felt I could be truly myself, without any true judgment. I found some of my best, lifelong friends there, and spent countless hours getting all of my homework done. One day, one of my friends at work said, “I don’t understand why we don’t hang out outside of work?” and that’s how poker nights got started. That’s how we all went to Taco Bell one night and shared personal stories. That’s how the following year we all went to Virginia Beach and Busch Gardens and spent countless hours in the library doing “homework” & drinking excessive amounts of coffee.

That’s how I found myself spending too much time in one place with some of the right people, and some of the wrong people, all of which changed my life, mindset, and perspective.

Even though I did not ever get the change to sleep at Snowflex, I spent more hours there than I did in my own dorm over the three years I was at Liberty University. God brought me to Snowflex— worked everything out so that I would be able to work there despite my discouraging, lonely feelings. Snowflex changed my life, and it truly became my “home away from home.”

Find your place, find your people, and trust God through the process. You never know where He might bring you if you simply open the doors. He can close whichever doors He does not want you to walk through, but He truly will bring the people into your life that are meant to stay if you seek His will and trust Him with your life. Make your plans His plans. Change your mindset. You never know what will happen!