Dearest Doris,

Hi roomie! Can I just start off by saying that I am so, so, SO glad that I met you last year? I still can't believe that you were the person I had to make up a handshake with at one of the orientation activities. “This is your first college buddy,” they told us as we exchanged names and made up a handshake too complicated to actually remember. I would challenge that the orientation leaders have never been more right about a pairing in that game than they were with us.

In fact, I somehow ended up in your room that very night, not even remembering that you were my handshake buddy. I was only there because another early freshman year friend knew your roommate at the time and I randomly tagged along for a visit. “It was you!” you exclaimed to me, clarifying “My handshake buddy!” after I shot you a perplexed look. “Oh, yeah,” I responded as recognition flooded into my brain. We proceeded to try to recall our multiple part handshake, to no avail. That was the first of many freshman year nights I was to spend spewing nonsense and laughter from the rug on your dorm room floor.

I quickly learned that some of my favorite things about you were to be your kindness and your generosity. I don't know anyone who is more willing than you to give up everything to help other people. Being your friend, I know that I always have someone to talk to or fall back on, which is a huge relief in as stressful an environment as college.

The sheer amount of embarrassing videos you own of me from last year is testament to how well our ridiculous senses of humor immediately aligned. I'm so incredibly glad to have found someone here that understands my weirdness and accepts me for it. I also love that, on any given day, you'll randomly show me old videos of us and we’ll laugh and avoid our responsibilities together for hours. Then, after wasting all daylight with nonsense, we’ll panic together and cram in our homework and studying, practically injecting caffeine into our bodies until the wee hours of the morning. That's true college friendship right there.

Over the summer, I would occasionally get to FaceTime you, and those were some of the funniest moments of my time away from school. I remember one day I brought you to run errands with me via FaceTime and made you greet all of the workers I interacted with. The Starbucks barista thought it was hilarious. The Hobby Lobby cashier was far from amused. Either way, we didn't care. We think we're hilarious and, at the end of the day, isn't that what counts?

Now, we live together (for real, unlike last year when I tried to troll everyone into thinking we lived together when we didn't) and I couldn't be happier anywhere else. As I once told one of our other suitemates, we are both “disgusting trash-people insomniacs” and, quite frankly, the truth of that statement knows no limits (Have you looked at our room lately? We are a wreck). I swear, there is not a single moment where either one of us knows what is going on, but at least there is never a dull moment with us, either. Even though most of our interactions involve shouting, coughing, terrible dancing, off-key singing, falling, panicking, unintelligible shrieking, random quotes, harsh sarcasm, weird inside jokes and us just being general messes, I'm thankful for each and every one of them.

Doris, you are a ray of sunshine in my hectic life. Never stop believing in how wonderful you are. Thank you for being you, today and every day!

Love,

Hayley