The Sheehan building was my first home away from home; it’s a place I think about everyday. My last few final nights in 404, I looked around and realized how much I was going to miss this place. Everything from my tacky Christmas lights, the obnoxious sound my door made when it closed, and the rug that still has shattered pieces of glass from that Svedka bottle I just had to knock over. I was going to miss the memories I made here, all the laughs, the tears, and every late night wings delivery. My roommates and I were the first residents to stay in that building and it will always have a special place in our hearts.
So, to the girls living there, welcome to your new home away from home.
This is the place you start to put the tiny pieces of your life puzzle together, and it will be quite the ride.
The one person that will be along on that ride with you throughout it all will be your roommate. It may be scary; you may not know each other. The idea of sharing your personal space is something you're just not sure about, but if there is one thing I can promise you about having a roommate it's that it will only be as good as you make it.
She, regardless of if she realizes it or not, is going to be there for you through every failed test and every mix signal from that boy that year. She will make sure you always have someone to go to dinner with and sneak you back greasy pizza in her sweatshirt pocket when you just don't feel up to going. You will feed her pretzels as she lies on the floor of your because she stayed out just a little too late the night before. She'll snapchat the ugliest photos of you sleeping and then save them for blackmail when you just cant rally to go out. You will stay up late at night together, binge eating, watching a pointless show like Bob's Burgers, and talk till 2 a.m.. Then when 3 a.m. rolls around, you’ll ask her if she's up, she'll say no, and then you'll sing her your own rendition of "smelly cat". She'll put a hole on the left side of the room the first day because she just HAD to keep that shelf under her bed. OK, to be fair, I made my own fair shares of holes too. She will always be there for you and you will always be there for her, it’s as simple as that.
That room has seen its fair share of hurtful words, tears, broken down pizza boxes, but mostly laughs. There has been a great foundation of memories laid for you; I hope you can make some great ones of your own. I hope that you decorate in the way you dreamed your first dorm room would look like. I hope you order take out late at night. I hope you make friends with your suitemates, who become just as precious to you as your roommate. I hope you make friends with the neighbors and everyone in the hall (especially your RA, wink, wink). I hope you think of crazy ideas, like putting a fish in a giant wine glass for the whole second semester. I hope you dance around room at 12:00 a.m. with your friends singing Whitney Houston during quiet hours. I hope you make late night trips to the C-store for Ben & Jerry's when you just had a bad day. I hope you fell as at home as I did after stumbling in after a Thursday night out. I hope you make your freshman year everything you dreamed it to be; you're in the perfect room for it. Most importantly, I hope you put your own holes in those walls.
