Pro Tip #4: I Like my Friends Extra Toasty Sometimes

So I've been rethinking my life. That's always fun...

Spring semester for me has meant going back to square one. I feel like I'm a brand spankin' new freshman all over again: I once again essentially don't know a single soul on a campus, I've been thrust into a new dorm and new ward, and my life is a disaster (#storyofmylife). I'll admit that last week was pretty rough, but this week seems to have sunshine in the forecast (not literally, it rained today RIGHT AFTER I TOOK OFF MY RAIN BOOTS, but that's another story haha)

Anyways, my friend-making process lately has been pretty sloppy. It's like I've been walking down the aisles of the BYU Creamery looking for prepackaged best friends. I've mentally been like: Oh, your sugar content is too high, I need more salt in a relationship. Or, your jokes are too funny, I need something with way more cheese. Or, oh, you have 17 grams of protein? I think that's too much "pro" and "teen" for me to handle. 

The thing is, in having set expectations for what kind of friends I've been expecting to make, I've been missing out. It's like when I went to the BYU Creamery the other day. I wanted to buy a nice, normal, original flavored box of Cheez-its. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, because they didn't have the original flavor. They had the snack mix combo, the white cheddar, the hot 'n spicy mix, the extra toasty (what the even goodness does that even mean?!) and like four other flavors, none of them were normal.
So what were my options?

I could pay like $4 to try a new Cheez-it flavor, or I could storm out of the Creamery empty handed, cranky, and still hungry. 

Needless to say, I marched home with a box of Extra Toasties under my arm, and they were a quarter of the way gone before my key was in the dorm. 

I assume you've caught on by now that I'm using Cheez-its as a metaphor for life (apologies for the cheesiness of this analogy). Like Cheez-its, people come in all kinds of flavors, colors, and sizes. But unlike Cheez-its, people and especially FRIENDS don't come in prepackaged, neatly sealed, ready-to-eat boxes. People are so much fresher and so much better than that. By expecting to make friends with certain kinds of people, I've been limiting myself to metaphorical original Cheez-its. I've also managed to make myself quite lonely and mopey. But as I've sought to be friendly to everyone, I've started to form friendships with the extra toasties and hot 'n spicys on BYU campus. People who are genuinely sweet with a not a grain of salt in their bodies, people who are actually, legitimately funny, and people who leave me feeling filled with love at 17 grams of perfect proteen. With each new flavor I try, I find myself being lifted up from my hole of self pity into a whole new hope: that someday soon, I'll have some new best friends to call my own. 

And the best part? They're not 1,650 calories a box.