For the first time in your life, you are preparing yourself for the unknown. The first 18 years of your young adult life have prepared you to take this giant step. A step into a place you fear, a place you love, a place that surprises you, and a place where you can learn about the person who you truly want to become. You are ready to take your first steps into the beyond and you take them onto campus as a freshman in college.

No matter how prepared you think you are, you can never be prepared enough for the wild roller coaster that college is. You pack all your most valued possessions into brown cardboard boxes, say goodbye to your loved ones back home, and you look at your home one last time, teary eyed. You're escaping everything you know and love. Leaving for college is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life so far. I left my family, my friends, and, most unfortunately, my beloved pets behind in a gray house in a small rural cul-de-sac and made an 800 mile drive toward a college where I only knew one person. I have no idea what surrounded me except for the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Appalachian Mountains to the west. Everything frightened me, but what I never expected would be the unbelievable friendships that I would make there that would last me a lifetime.

One of the most frightening aspects of going to a school so far away was choosing a roommate. What was even more frightening was at my college, we weren't allowed to. I had heard many horror stories about getting a random roommate. There were the roommates who never cleaned their room and left piles of messy clothes and half eaten containers of Easy Mac sprawled across the room. There were the roommates who kicked you out nearly every night of the week because their boyfriend was sleeping over, leaving you desperate to find some place to sleep. And worst of all, there were the roommates who were at college just to party their four years away while you're slaving away to get a 4.0 GPA. With my unfortunate bad luck, I knew I was destined to end up with someone that was the polar opposite of me. A recipe for disaster.

The four of us met on a Saturday; move in day. Excitement filled the halls as people introduced themselves and made themselves comfortable in an extremely small area that would serve as home for the next 10 months of their life. It was an awkward first meeting to be completely truthful. We were all shy, but in a matter of moments (more like days), we all opened up to each other and created what would become a remarkable friendship. There was my roommate who loved horses and enjoyed overpriced name brands and monograms just as much as I do. There was my roommate who loved the television show "Friends" and had the sweetest personality that it would physically hurt not to love her. There was my roommate that although in the end, it may not have worked out as well as we originally hoped, shared a love for country music with me that none of the other girls did. We spent the majority of our time as first semester freshmen together. We were inseparable.

In this time that we've spent separated, I've learned to care more about them than I did when I was living with them. I've learned that the bond we share between us is unlike any group of girls that I have known. My roommates have easily become my best friends and the girls that will one day accompany me throughout this unpredictable journey that we call life. For everything that they have done for me, I would like to thank them for they have given me the world and more.

Thank you for making me laugh hysterically. Although, I may not have enjoyed those first few nights of college because we stayed up until three in the morning laughing until we cried, they were easily some of the greatest nights of my life. I would take four hours of sleep and wanting to cry over how tired I am for a good night's sleep anytime.

Thank you for doing all the quirky things you do. Who would have known that my roommate hanging her riding pants from the ceiling fan would one day create a memory of dodging flying pants that would make me laugh instantaneously.

Thank you for teaching me. I may have taught you about the wonders of creating food in the microwave, but you taught me all about how to be a better friend, girlfriend, and student, all things that I will take with me for the rest of my life.

Thank you for helping me where help was needed. Thank you for reading my essays to ensure that I got the A that I wanted, and thank you for giving me a hand to hold onto when I missed my home the most.

Thank you for saving me. Thank you for saving me from situations that I would most likely have ended up regretting if it weren't for you all. I know that at the moment, I was probably angry because it was what I wanted, but I am forever grateful that you took me out of a situation where I could have ended up hurt.

Thank you for being with me until the end. Thank you for helping me as times got dark and I missed my home more than I thought was bearable. Thank you for your strong words of encouragement and holding me while I cried.

And thank you for being my friend. My partner in crime. My companion on rainy Friday nights walking around campus. The one that I watched movies with. The one who went to the library with me. The one that went to the gym with me. The one that gave me confidence and the one that gave me strength. The one who went to breakfast with me on Sunday mornings and the one who went to dinner with me on weekday nights. The one that will stay my friend until the end. Thank you.

In the beginning, I was nervous about college, what my future roommates would be like, and if I would make friends. But I never would have imagined then that my friends were going to be beside me the whole time and would be living in the same room as me. The scary game of randomized roommates would be a game that I'd forever be thankful for because who knew that a personality test would cause me to meet my best friends.