To my freshman year roommate,

As four years of college, graduation ceremonies and celebrations have come and gone, I’m realizing more now than ever that I never truly thanked you, my first ever roommate, for everything you were for me four years ago.

Let’s backtrack four summers ago, the summer before our freshman year, after we both officially decided to attend our school. I don’t think you understand how greatly I anticipated an email from our school’s housing department “introducing” you to me. Ever since the conversations with my high school friends describing our ideal college roommates began, I built you up so much in my head and couldn’t wait to put a name to the face I had envisioned.

You were going to be my assigned best friend. And as nervous as I was going to be leaving home, my family and friends to transition into college life, in a new and unfamiliar state, environment, everything, I would be fine because I had you, my assigned best friend.

You and I were going to get along great; we’d anxiously wait for our parents to leave on move in day so we could decorate our room together, we’d study together as the semester went on, take the same classes because of course we had all the same interests, and do everything else there was to do in college together. And as much as you may not have realized at the time, while you were finding out who I was too, I really couldn’t wait to meet you. So, thank you for agreeing to be my best friend before you knew it.

From the day we moved into the day we moved out of our closet-sized dorm room, I questioned all that I had previously built up in my head. Our friendship didn’t blossom within seconds of meeting one another, we weren’t excited for our parents to leave us alone as strangers, we didn’t have as much in common as I’d hoped, and we didn’t do all of the things I thought we’d do together.

I was disappointed that the roommate I’d created in my head months ago wasn’t you and I’m sorry that I continued to let this initial disappointment show here and there throughout our freshman year.

But now, four years later, looking back on my first friendship at school, I truly appreciated you for everything you actually were, but was too wrapped up in everything you weren’t to ever properly thank you. Through our ups and downs and despite our differences, you still acted like the assigned best friend I initially thought I was getting, so if it’s not too late, I’d like to thank you.

Thank you for teaching me what it’s like to share a room, giving me the sister and social skills I never realized I needed. Thank you for keeping our room as clean as could be, just how you caught on to realize I liked it. Thank you for sharing what you were learning in school with me, leading me to change my major to yours. Thank you for introducing me to new shows on Netflix, even though I made fun of how often you watched them. Thank you for filling up my water bottle and leaving it next to my bed on the nights you didn’t come to the bar, reminding me that you were always thinking of me. Thank you for making other friends, forcing me to do the same, and meet some of my best and lifelong friends. Thank you for letting me use your thermometer and nursing me back to health whenever I was sick. Thank you for telling me what your hometown and high school friends are like, letting me realize that life goes on outside of where I’m from. Thank you for having diverse interests, introducing me to the idea that I’m allowed to like people with personalities different from mine. Thank you for always being there to talk before we went to bed every night, after we closed our dorm room door to the outside world and were just assigned best friends again. Thank you for getting to know me. Thank you for liking me for who I was. Thank you for accepting our assigned friendship.

No matter how much I may have wanted you to be someone you weren’t before I even met you, I owe you a thank you for being who you were then because you helped me become who I am now.

Love,

Your sincerely grateful freshman year roommate