Hey, guys.
Remember when we all moved in and saw the tiny, dark closet we’d be living in for the next nine months? Did you ever think we’d survive in there?
Well, here we are. We had some close calls, though.
There were rampant roommate illnesses (we learned more about mono and strep than we ever thought possible), fights over toilet paper, lectures from our RA, and sleepless nights. There were huge messes, little messes, cockroaches, lost clothing, missing food, tears, and frustration.
But I’d do it all again for you guys.
I’d do it all again for the laughter, the hugs, the late night viewing of pictures from middle school, the morning gossip about whoever came in latest the night before, and the endless discoveries we made about each other’s personalities (the good AND the bad).
Whether we knew it or not, we were each other’s one source of stability in a world that was rapidly changing before our eyes. No matter how different our surroundings were, how new our classes were, or how lost we felt, we at least knew who would be there to say hello when we came home at the end of the day.
It’s a bittersweet end, really. I know we’re all ecstatic to get the hell out of that moldy, overcrowded hole. We can’t wait to move on from being freshmen and choose who we live with and never eat at the freshmen dining hall again.
But a little part of me will miss coming home to you, asleep or awake, every night. A little part of me will miss your weird habits, or our water filters that were never filled, or our cleaning chart that we NEVER USED ONCE.
Of course, we’ll see each other next year. We still have three more years of being friends and classmates. I’m sure we’ll hug each other on the street and get coffee to catch up every so often and go to parties together on occasion.
I’ll be forever proud of your accomplishments and you of mine. But things will be different from here on out. We will no longer have that teeny tiny room that bound us together as freshmen. True, we have found other similarities to bond over. We shop at some of the same stores, are obsessed with some of the same shows, and have even joined some of the same organizations.
But none of these things are as concrete as that shared space. That similarity, for better or worse, will be gone in two weeks. Maybe we’ll start to notice our differences more. That’s totally okay.
I apologize in advance for growing a little distant and I forgive you in advance for flaking on plans once or twice. Nothing can change the role you have already played in my life.
No matter what happens, I just want you to know how much you have done for me. You may not have known it at the time, but it got been increasingly easier to fall asleep every night simply knowing that you all were asleep around me. You were the people who truly made me fall in love with this place.
As much I’ll miss bonding over shared fear of cockroaches, giggling late at night for no reason, and complaining about the loud people on our floor, I am forever grateful for these memories. You only get to do freshman year once, and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with everyone else.
Long live (insert room # here).
(R.I.P. Reggie the cockroach).
