“This I Believe” Rough Draft

I believe in acts of love. Acts of love can range between so many different things though. Some people think that acts of love are a hug, or a pat on the back after someone does something nice. I agree and disagree with this. I think that some of the biggest acts of love happen when no one is really expecting them. When I was packing almost all of my clothes and such to come to Penn State I was overwhelmed to say the least. I was starting this new chapter of my life; I was given to opportunity to have a total do-over if I wanted one- to start fresh. While I was sitting there, on my bedroom floor, feeling like I was at a loss because I didn’t quite know how I wanted to start this new beginning, I looked over at one of my unzipped duffle bags on the floor. Mixed in with my clothes in that unzipped bag, I saw my dog’s toy sticking out of the top of it. I look next to my bag and there is my dog sitting there looking at me with his head cocked to side, kind of wining. At that moment, my eyes started to tear up. My dog then proceeded to walk towards me and nuzzle his head under my hand so I was forced to pet him- not that I wouldn’t have anyways. At that moment in time, all of my problems that had been consuming me before seemed to melt away and the only thing that I was concerned about was the act of love that my dog had just shown me. This is only the first example of the act of love that I experienced in those last couple of days leading up to college though. The second act of love came from my sister and parents when had finally gotten all of my things settled in at school. We were standing in my newly furnished dorm room, when my sister said that she wanted to give me my going away present. She handed me a stack of letters. I looked at them all, without opening any, and they were all “open when” letters. To share just a few of them, they included “open when you miss me,” “open when you run out of money to do laundry,” “open when you have midterms/finals,” and “open when you’re hung over.” These are just a few of the many letters that my sister presented me with at that moment. The final act of love that I experienced was from my parents. My parents, similar to my sister, also gave me an envelope. I decided not to read it until they left though. So we all said our goodbyes, as tearful as they were, and my parents and sister were on their way. In the mean time, there I was sitting alone on my bed, without my family nearby for the first time in my life. | I decided that I would open the letter from my parents in the mean time. When I finished reading that letter, it was one of the nicest sentiments that I had received, definitely a tearjerker.

I still have more to add, have to figure out how to bring it full circle, etc.