Let me tell you about a few of my mistakes. Because no one is perfect and if college has taught me anything at all, it is that I am far, far away from perfect.

It was a mistake when, during my very first week of school as a student at Mizzou, I walked into the wrong lecture hall. It was a bigger mistake to stay for the entire lecture because I was too embarrassed to walk out. And my biggest mistake was actually taking notes for this class that I didn’t take then, nor ever, during my four years here.

It was a mistake to think I didn’t belong in my sorority I had been in for just a month, and it was a mistake to let myself get as close to dropping as just one weekend away. It was a mistake to think I came in with the right major, my entire life plan set out with no room for revisions. It was also a mistake to assume that as a senior, I would know where all my classes were on the first day without researching them.

It was a mistake to pick El Rancho at the end of many nights. It was a mistake that time we decided to pregame for the holiday party with an entire fifth of Lemonade Burnett’s, and it was a mistake when I stole a pink dinosaur costume from a random room in APhi later that night. It was a mistake all those mornings I came home at the break of dawn, and they were our mistakes when I met several sisters on the way there.

I thought it was my mistake for dating the wrong boys and I thought it was my mistake for letting the right ones go. It was a mistake all the nights I picked studying over hanging out with friends, and it was a mistake all the nights I picked hanging out with friends over studying.  It was a mistake to not take the time to sit on the columns on a beautiful day until this very moment, as I’m writing this blog and stopping every so often to just take in the beauty that is this campus. And it was a mistake to come in as a freshman and think 4 years was a long time to go here.

But my biggest mistake of all was thinking I belonged anywhere else but Mizzou.

Mizzou was the last place I wanted to end up as a senior in high school. I was mad when I begrudgingly paid my first deposit, I was mad when I was assigned my first dorm, I was mad the day I left my home to move to this one. I came, kicking and screaming, to the prettiest campus in the US and all of the sudden, now I never want to leave.

As I finish up the last 2 weeks of some of the best 4 years of my life, I have no regrets. The mistakes I’ve listed above are only a small number of the many, many lapses in judgments and oversights I’ve had as a student here. Ahead of me, I have a whole lifetime of mistakes left to make and after all my experiences screwing up here, I’ve never felt more prepared for failure. Because the thing I’ve realized is that all those times I thought I failed, all the times I cried too hard over something that didn’t matter, all these problems were not problems at all. I’m eternally grateful for every mistake I’ve made here.

Because all these mistakes have made me who I am.

I would have never pushed myself so hard for law school if I hadn’t first ruled out journalism. I would have never met my  best friends if I hadn’t stayed in my sorority one last weekend. Then I would have never realized they are my future bridesmaids if they hadn’t rescued me from that pink dinosaur suit and put railings on the edge of my lofted bed. I would never have a great story and a 2 random pages of Greek/Roman Art History notes if I hadn’t walked into that wrong lecture hall on my first Friday as a student. And how would I know who the right guys are if I hadn’t dated the wrong ones? (Just kidding. I still don’t know who the right guys are. Wear a sign maybe?)

Most of all, if I hadn’t “mistakenly” picked Mizzou, I would be a totally different person than I am now. And to be quite honest, despite all my flaws and my constant string of mistakes, I kind of like the person I am now.

So here’s to what’s been an amazing four years. Here’s to the next 3, the next 25, the next 50. Here’s to the tears, here’s to the laughs, and here’s to a lifetime of perfect mistakes and all the good things that come out of them.