Eight years ago, I at twelve years old, on my first day of seventh grade, was a nervous wreck of shaky knees and hands that wouldn't stop fidgeting with the collar of my blue polo shirt. I was sitting in my mother's black Hyundai, anxiously waiting to board a bus that would take me to a new school at which I didn't know a single student.

I walked down the dirty, rubbery aisle floor, past rows of navy blue seats that had endured years of picking and peeling at the hands of schoolchildren. There were only 3 other students on the bus at this point, and two of them had boarded with me: one a boy with shaggy hair, who looked like he was still asleep, the other, a girl with her blonde hair tied back in a ribbon, knotted with a bow. She was wearing a red shirt, plaid shorts, and to this day the brightest smile I've ever seen before 7 a.m.

It is early one Saturday morning in the Spring of 2016, and I am pulling into the driveway of Ashley's childhood home. We are armed with coupons, Pinterest boards, and college-packing lists as we venture off to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy matching everything for our shared dorm room, in which we impatiently wait to move into in August.

There is one fact that almost every college student will agree with me on: Dorm life is hard. Dorm life is really hard, and kind of loud, and usually smells a little bit like a mix of overdue laundry, coffee grounds, and food that's been in the fridge for too long. For nine months, you live in a corner and feel like you're on display in a fishbowl, constantly being watched.

But the one thing that makes or breaks living in a dorm that first semester of college is the roommate.

Had Ashley not been my roommate freshman year, had she not been there to tackle the woes of noisy neighbors and messy suitemates, and drunken boys boorishly stumbling their way down the hall in the early hours of the morning, I'm not sure what college would have made of me.

The dorm wasn't a comforting place to come home to after my classes, but she was. She was, with her unyielding support on both good days and bad, her endless stream of jokes, and her drop of the hat willingness to put everything down, go get tacos and watch Grey's Anatomy with me.

This past year, we braved even more as roommates...silly us thinking the dorms were as bad as it could get. Live and learn, right? Our apartment complex was in what you might call a "developing neighborhood." Sirens each night, loud music and hoarse yelling outside our windows in the morning, notices and warnings posted, urging us to keep an eye out for any "suspicious" activity.

It was a lot to take in, a lot to get used to. But we managed. None of our kitchen appliances really worked. The smoke alarm would blare at the mere opening of the oven, the dishwasher would return our dishes worse than before we washed them, and to dry a load of laundry, we'd have to clear our schedule and set aside a good 4 hours. And yet, we managed that too.

We managed the ebbs and flows of love, and loss, and learning. Hard classes, emerging adulthood, separation, abandonment. We felt all the highs and all the lows of college life, but we felt them together, and that has been the hallmark of my university career.

As we prepare to move out, it is bittersweet to reflect on the joys she has brought to my life. Not a day has passed since we moved into room 129 where she hasn't made me smile. As we go our separate ways next year, please know that you are always in my heart as one of the best friends a girl could ask for. And the next time you feel like a Blue Bloods marathon, there's always a spot for you on my couch.