My first year of college is done, has been done for over a week now, but I find myself still reminiscing. It was a trying year, for sure, but recently I find my mind wanders back to the good times, all the great memories.

Even now, I still remember how terrified I was when I first found out my roommate assignment. I had gone in random; coming from a small high school, I was one of four people from my class to leave the state, let alone attend Emory University. So when I opened up my Housing account to find out who I'd share my first year with, I was fraught with many a nerve.

Will I like her? Will she like me? Will we get along? Will we hate each other? What if she's messy? What if she's noisy? What if what if what if?

When I opened up my Housing account to find out who I'd share my first year with, I was fraught with many a nerve. But now I look back at our year together with a smile, because we've become the closest of friends.

It turned out she was just like me: she was the only one here from her high school, far, far, away. We started out with each other, and built our year off of that.

It definitely took a learning curve. We learned each other's habits, personalities. We learned that we had many differences, but also a ton of similarities. We liked the same shows, the same foods. We shared the same terrible Uber Eats habit. We shared similar goals.

And we'd influence each other. I got her back into anime. She got me into Kpop and face masks. And so it goes.

But what was most important of all was that we had each other.

We grew, struggled, cried and laughed together. College isn't easy, and being new never is. But throughout it all, we had each other's back. We picked each other up through the first unsatisfying graded assignments and the food poisoning from the dining hall and the social anxiety and the anxieties of the future. We spent late nights talking to each other in the dark before bed about what we wanted from life in general, about our dreams and realities. We were our biggest mentors, and our biggest fans. We knew that it didn't matter how stressful things would be in the end, because at the end of the day we'd be able to sit around and chat, to laugh about it.

And before we knew it, spring semester was over, our things were packed, and we tearfully hugged for the last time in our small, beloved dorm room, neither of us wanting to go.

I may not have chosen my roommate, but our friendship chose up. Because, to be quite honest, I'd do it all again. To this day, she's one of my biggest confidantes. She's the one I send memes to late at night. She's the one I text when I need a laugh.

And she's the one who grew with me, stood with me, and supported me the whole time. And I wouldn't have it any other way.