To My Gato...

I remember the first time I met her...I ran up the stairs of S hall one Sunday morning, running late to meet Dom. It was the second to last week of school our freshman year and I told her I would go to church with her ward. I run up the stairs and burst through the door, only to see a girl standing with one leg propped up on her desk, putting lotion on, with a towel on her head, in nothing but her underwear. "Whoa...RANDOM people walking up the stairs!" The door slammed shut. "What a freaking brat," I thought to myself...it wasn't like I was trying to look at her in her underwear.

Four months later, I moved into Carriage Cove. My parents helped me move in because I had a car accident in Wyoming that totaled my car. As we were carrying boxes down the hallway, I noticed a name tag on one of the bedroom doors that looked familiar. I had seen similar ones in S hall the year before when I would go and visit Dom. An hour or so later, Kathleen came home and introduced herself to me and my parents. She was from Ohio, and since my dad is too, they started talking and it turns out her mom dated one of my dad's mission companions...or something along those lines. We became instant friends. Within the first week, we went to Vortex to go clubbing for her 19th birthday. (We are only about two weeks apart.)

We shared a love of all things basketball, and soon became fast friends with "our token black players." We made shirts for them and went to each game religiously.


We partied hard, and slept never, always remembering that despite all the work we had to do, we only had so much time left in our college years.


(don't worry...it's cream soda)

I threw her a killer 20th birthday party...




...and our junior year was a blast!




This year, her senior year, she is LEAVING me!! She graduated this morning from BYU, being accepted into law school and a ridiculously bright future ahead of her. She has the power to be successful at anything she sets her mind to and I know that she will.
So, Kathleen, just know that I will miss you and that I love you! I am proud of the person that you have become over the past few years and I don't know what I would have done without you in my life. We've shared some fun times...ridiculously fun times, actually..."We're together...they can't rape us. ...Unless there are TWO of them!!" or "I brought my nine in case I had to bust a cap." There were the times you saved me from making really REALLY dumb decisions, the times you saved me when I woke up with a strange boy in my bed (wow, that sounds REALLY bad when you write it out...but I promise, to any reading this, that it's not what it sounds like...), there were the times when you sat there when I cried and offered me my Dr. Pepper through the tears, or the times we had to smuggle boxes of Krispy Kreme and cookies into the library and then offered them to those around us to ensure their silence. You taught me the love of all things Coach and Tiffany's, made me realize "It's Called a Break-Up Because It's Broken," and helped me experience my FIRST CACTUS!! (haha) I really can't imagine what my life would have been like without you!!

I love you and good luck in Washington DC or wherever else the future takes you! (Do you like that inspiration? You know you're laughing through the tears I just made you shed!!)