Going away to college means a lot of things, and a lot of them seem immensely terrifying the closer the day of reckoning comes. You have your acceptance days, when you are still in high school and college is a lifetime away, still lost in movies and your parents' stories of their college days, or the advice of teachers who tell you to come back and visit, take the early classes for the best experience, and never forget what you've learned in their classroom.

Then summer comes, and suddenly high school is gone, you've walked across the stage at graduation and are officially entering the reality that is college. For some, that means staying home and prepping yourself for commutes all year, but for others it means leaving to live somewhere else, sleep in a bed that will never be as comfortable as your own, and facing the world on your own without your old haunts and safe places.

Thus were my thoughts in the months, weeks, days leading up to the inevitable - when my parents left me in a virtually empty dorm room with a few bags full of my entire life, with a promise to FaceTime at some point and to keep my head up. I thought I had been prepared for it, but I wasn't. I felt all of the loneliness that they never warn you about when you get your acceptance letter, but I was given the absolute gift of having a line thrown my way. You, my roommate.

It's one of the first things that your friends and family from home ask you - how's your roommate? Almost more important than your GPA, your roommate can make or break college for you, from what I've learned. A bad roommate can range from less sleep because of the noise they make at strange hours when the night is blurring into morning to fights or a complete lack of conversation at all. Meanwhile, a good roommate means a friend in a whirlwind of people who are potential-friends, class-friends, and not-friends. A good roommate means that your dorm room is a safe place, where you can lie down on the floor after an exhausting class, or ask for help turning on the shower during your first night.

I was lucky - I found a great roommate.

You, my darling friend, are a great roommate; this was written for you, after all. I'll be seeing you soon, and nothing hurt more than when we parted ways for the summer. Admittedly, that first day, I had hoped that we would become best friends, but nothing had prepared me for every moment spent with someone who I most certainly consider my inspiration during the school year. You were the one I woke up seeing each day and the last person I saw before falling asleep into my textbook.

Recently, I was asked what it was like to have a roommate. While the answer itself should have been easy, open and shut, let me tell you that it certainly was not so simple. How can I possibly explain to someone what it is like to live with someone for months at a time, and go through so much together? Words cannot properly encapsulate the feeling of home that washed over me just by hearing your music seeping from under our door after class, or the ease of just sitting in the room together with music playing, neither of us needing to talk. I can barely understand the bond forged within a semester that made me know that, despite not having blood in common, you are my family. It is something that needs to be experienced to ever actually understand just how much a great roommate means to me or, rather, just how much you mean to me.

Thank you for making college bearable, for understanding my moods before I do, and for always making me smile. Thank you for being the friend that I needed and the sister that I never knew I wanted. If there are lucky stars, then I thank them for letting us meet and live together, because I couldn't imagine living with anyone else, nor would I want to.