Freshman year of college is a year of many changes. Your home becomes a one room bedroom that is a kitchen, living room and bedroom all in one. Not to mention, you are sharing it with someone else. Your classes change from being all day in one chunk of time to spiratic and scattered across a campus. Your solid group of friends that you had in high school are now only as close as a phone call or text away...plus a few miles. Your life becomes your own, the decisions you make are based solely on what your values feel are best and you hope to God you are doing the right thing. Life becomes unscheduled, a little crazy, but a little bit of fun too. The person who becomes one of the most influential people in your life is your freshman roommate. So here is a thank you to my freshman roommate; the first person I ever have had to share a room with and one of the best people in my life.

1. Thank you for cheering me on.

For real, when I had three tests in a week plus a paper due and had no motivation to study, you were there making sure I was getting the grades I needed to get. On the days I was nervous because I had a presentation or an interview, your "you've got this" texts, and "I believe in you" speeches, were exactly what I needed.

2. Thank you for always eating ice cream with me.

No really, I am pretty sure that we are the reason our C-store had to keep restocking Ben & Jerry's. As we would joke, we should have bought stock in it. But Netlfix and ice cream was never a bad idea for us, it always made for a great Tuesday night. Or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... I mean, it was always the best choice. But, the popcorn and pizza weren't ever wrong either.

3. Thank you for listening to me.

The mid day break downs I would have with tears coming from who knows where always made for a fun afternoon (even though we would end up making fun of me afterwards anyway). Each day there was something new, mostly unimportant, but (highly!!) important at the time.

4. Thank you for understanding me.

Thank you for giving me space when I needed it, talking to me when you had stuff to do, and enjoying all my weird, freaky, quirks I have going for me. I really have no idea how well it worked out that we were matched together because truly I don't know if it could have been more perfect. I know you hate country music, but you listened to it anyway because that's what I had on. You also hate cheese (which is weird because you're from Wisconsin), but you didn't get mad when I would make Mac and cheese and the room would smell, you'd just kindly ask me to open the window. Or you would do it yourself

5. Thank you for not being annoying.

You didn't snore, you were socially educated/informed, and you could hold a conversation. You also didn't come home super late at night making a lot of noise. I really believe I got so lucky

6. Thank you for being weird.

Because if you were weird, that meant it was okay if I was weird and then we were super weird together and 682 became a hot mess real fast. But it was always fun

7. Thank you for doing the dishes.

I appreciate the days I came home and the Tetris stacked dishes were clean and put away. Most importantly though you never got mad at me for not having done mine yet because you hadn't done yours either.

8. Thank you for the advice for which I never asked.

On days I would be telling you a story (so essentially every day), you'd give me advice I had no intentions of receiving but unknowingly needed.

9. Thank you for the late night talks.

Thanks for getting in trouble with me from our dorm security guard because we were laughing too hard past quiet hours. 2 am came really fast some nights when we would get on a roll. We talked about literally everything this year and on some mornings that I had an 8 am I didn't know if I was going to be able to get out of bed (but you made me) (and thanks for that) because of how late we were up talking. Our conversations never started off serious nor did they ever finish serious, but somewhere in the middle of all of that we talked about things only 12 am drowsiness can bring and I am so thankful for it.

10. Thank you for being the best roommate I could have asked for.

Thank you for being the greatest and making my freshman year as good as it was. I couldn't have asked for someone who was more supportive, understanding and incredibly sarcastic as you were. You understood when I was kidding and realized when I needed space. You checked in on me when I wasn't home at a time that I normally would be and on rough days (especially when I had the flu) you did everything a mom would do to make being away a little bit easier.

So, as these next two weeks go by, I will be very sad to see our time of rooming together come to an end. Room 682 will have to get our lives together as we pack up everything to go home, but 682 was a good home with you this year.

As always,

Have fun, be safe, be kind, make friends.