I remember before I left for college, I was petrified.

Out of most of the people I graduated from high school with, I was going the furthest away from home. Not only that, but I was also moving to a state that I had not once stepped foot into.

I thought I would be lonely.

I thought my roommate would hate me.

I thought I would miss Georgia and want to go back home, after spending a year preparing to get out.

All of those things I feel are common for people who are leaving for college for the first time. Especially going to college states away from the only thing you had ever known. Boy, I was more wrong than I have ever been in my entire life.

I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason. Whether it be the places you end up, the people you meet, or even the things you end up becoming apart of. Kentucky, the beautiful, Bluegrass state was the safe haven that I never knew I needed. I am reminded every day, and it all started in the simple corner, corridor on the fourth floor of Haggin Hall.

First off, my roommate and I moved into our tiny new home. It was minuscule, six hundred square-foot room with two rooms and a bathroom. The bathroom light never turned on all the way and flickered so we called it a "murder light". It always felt like a crime scene.

Each room always smelled of essential oils and our common area wafted with the smell of everything bagels, mac n cheese, and baby carrots.

After the first evening in our dorm, we met up with a group of girls to go through recruitment. Our group consisted of ten girls, all of us living in the same corner of the hallway. When we first met, we were all giggly and silent. Forgetting each other's names and pretty much acting strange around each other.

It wasn't until one of my hall-mates requested the song "Tempo" by Lizzo on our walk to Greek Row did the ice break and we have all been inseparable ever since. Locked arms and sweet hugs until the end of time.

We all ended up in different sororities following recruitment but supported each other through and through. Going to each other date parties, volunteering with each other's philanthropy events, and even cheering at one another's recreational flag football games.

It didn't matter that we had known each other for a little over a couple of months, it felt as though we had known each other all of our lives.

Every meal, every study break, every test review.

We sat around and bonded in ways I was grateful for for the remainder of my life. Some of them, I am lucky enough to live with next year, other I know will be living on our apartment couch

All from a small, corner hallway.

To Emme, Gianna, Savannah, Cayenne, Victoria, Ashley, and Madi, you all hold places in my heart that will be there until the end of time and I am blessed every day that your faces were there for me from the beginning.

Here is to many more nights and that wonderful, grey, shag carpet.