I have a roommate.

At first, I was very worried about who my roommate, Nicole, was. Everyone has anxieties about moving in with someone else, but mine were based solely on cleaning.

Nicole liked to be organized and clean. I’ve never used a planner and I’m the definition of a mess. I clean maybe once a week, if I’m feeling ambitious. I don’t like cleaning, but I also don’t like contaminating someone else’s space with my mess. I’ve been trying to keep clean for her.

Moving in was interesting because I had met her before, but I still didn’t know how to talk to her. I got over that quick; I was spending basically all day, everyday with Nicole.

The first night was weird. It was dark in our room and we were ready to go to sleep. I didn’t know if I should tell her I was going to sleep. Eventually, I said, “Good night.” It didn’t feel right to not say good night, but good night has always felt like a goodbye to me and we were sleeping in the same room. There was no goodbye if you were sleeping 10 feet away from someone with no wall in between you.

Week two was less strange. We learned each other’s routines and how to joke around with one another. There were a few nights when the lights were off that we laid there, in own beds, talking for hours. I have a feeling that over the next year, we’re going to be having a lot more of those nights.

We’re a month into being roommates and we have dance parties every night. Every night. We have a disco ball; it really makes the parties special. Me and my roommate have practiced dances that we show our other friends.

They usually laugh at us, all in good fun, but there’s still a few giggles that come out.

We don’t mind. It’s fun to have someone to be silly and weird with all the time. Nicole is that person. She might love, love cleaning, and I might hate cleaning, but we work. We’re happy to be silly and weird, but we let each other have space.