My dearest freshman roommate:

First of all, I hope that your adventures abroad have been treating you well. With the constant updates and pictures on Facebook, I see that your time abroad is a time of exploring your vast horizons. It still amazes me that it has almost been a whole semester without you here on campus. Trust me when I say I can feel your absence. As it being my first semester without you here, or having any roommate for that matter, I often think of you and how amazing it was to experience my freshman year together with you.

Throughout the summer before freshman year, the most anxiety inducing aspect of college to me was discovering who my roommate was going to be. Questions about our relationship while living together clustered my mind: Were we ever going to get along? What if she has a weird personality? Were we just going to be those types of roommates that would just avoid each other until one of us moves out? What if she is into country music?

I'm not going to lie, when I got the letter saying that you were going to be my roommate, I immediately went to your Facebook. With each scroll down your profile page, my anxiety steadily declined. You didn't appear to have that nightmare-roommate material look to you so I had honestly thought I would be alright. And if you did end up like a psychopath, I at least had the option to change rooms. Thankfully it didn't come down to that.

As we had gotten to know each other, I felt that we became more than just roommates but genuine friends. From detailed plans about getting me together with guys in our class, random dance parties in our room, obsessive baking of banana bread and apple pie, and way too many memes, we slowly but surely grew as a dynamic duo.

As you have probably heard many times before, I write better than I speak. If there is anything I regret about freshman year, it is that I wish I would have thanked you more for everything you had done for me. You were my first friend on campus when I was scared that I would make none. When I felt sad or moody because of school or just life in general, you found ways of cheering me by showing off your sick beats and dance moves. During sleepless nights we would just lie in our beds and talked about random, and sometimes disturbing, things across the room. Every single one of those memories (along with countless others) made me realize that throughout my freshman year I didn't just gain a roommate, but a lifelong friend.

All in all, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for accepting me and putting up with my shenanigans just as much as I put up with yours. Thank you for the random dance parties, late-night baking, and random adventures even though I didn't want to go on them half the time. Thank you for being my cheerleader throughout all my mental breakdowns through calculus, Spanish, and writing courses. And thank you for choosing to go to our college; for if it wasn't for meeting you, I don't know where I would be (most likely still sad and miserable as a biology major).

Even now with you across thousands of miles and even an ocean between us, it always brings a smile to my face when you message me or post about your travels. Needless to say, I do miss you. Seeing now that you are enjoying life, tasting delicious foods and adventuring across Europe with a bright smile on your face, I'm glad that you are enjoying every moment of it.

But as happy as I am for you to be venturing off across Europe, I honestly can't wait for you to come back to campus and tell me all about it over some Five Guys.