Before I graduated high school, I figured out where I would be attending college which followed with whether I was going to commute or live on campus. Commuting meant saving money and living with my parents for a little longer while living on campus meant being miles away from my parents, hometown friends and overall, learning how to live on my own.
Most importantly, living on campus meant getting a roommate for the first time in my life. Imagine that, going from having your own bedroom all your life to living with someone you get to know through social media weeks before move in. It can be almost intimating knowing that if you live on campus that 99.9% of the time that you're going to be living with a stranger.
Ironically, my childhood best friend ended up deciding to go to the same college as me. Sounds perfect right! A solution has been found! Now I was lucky enough to live with my childhood best friend who I have not only grown up with but loved dearly. After figuring out we were going to officially be roommates, the opinions of others came up.
"You know living with your best friend is going to ruin your friendship completely.."
"Living with your best friend isn't a great idea."
"You're going to end up hating each other."
After four years of college, you learn more than you could have imagined especially about friendships. Outside the text books, you learn how valuable some people are and while others weren't meant to be in your life in the first.
So the question remains:
"Does living with your best friend ruin the friendship?"
The answer is absolutely not.
In my case, it just made my friendship with my best friend even more stronger and valuable. Living together teaches you both the good and the bad about your best friend. But it also truly teaches you how much you would do for one another. Think of it like a relationship, except much more complex than that.
Compromise, communication and living different lives without each other allows living with your best friend to work. She's not just your roommate but she's your partner in crime (as cliche as it sounds). You now get to have semi-permanent sleepovers with each other. But you must also maintain having different friends than each other so you never get sick of one another. When there's a problem, speak your mind and be honest. The longer you hold it in, the more it becomes complicated and annoyance.
I've been privileged to see all sides of my best friend because for the past four years I've lived with her. Each year brought its fair share of problems and arguments along with some tears. But even though there was bad, there was such good living with her. I learned more about myself than anything and I had her there the entire way.
So as college comes to an end, and this new brand new chapter begins, although I won't have my best friend and roommate only feet away from me, she's always a call or text away. I learned how much I love my best friend and that she's more than just that, she's my Marisa. She's the girl who I would do absolutely anything for, who has seen all sides of me and the person I borrow clothes from. My four years of college would not have been the same if I didn't have her by my side.
People can think what they want about best friends living with each other. It all comes down to how important that person and that relationship/friendship is to you. If it's that important, then it will work. If it's not, you'll learn that as you clash and drift apart.
I can tell you by experience, living with your childhood best friend has been the best decision I've made by far.
