1203 West 26th Street.

Mantor hall, Room 315.

Kearney, Nebraska.

From the outside looking in, this 17 x 10 ft room is your ordinary, overpriced, university dorm room. The kind of place that you sit in every week-day for nine months binge watching The Office and eating a 15-cent package of ramen… Right?

Destination Downtown, Aug. 2018

For someone who has always felt kind of lost and at times empty, I never thought that I could be so emotionally attached to something, or someone's. This place has become more than just a place to sleep and get dressed. It has become a safe space. This dusty, unorganized, tiny, little cement-walled room is the place that I learned to live with a stranger. The place that I met my best friend. The place that I pulled my first study oriented all-nighter. The place where my world came crashing down after discovering that I lost a good friend and sorority sister in a car accident and the same place that you came to and helped me mend it.

So for those of you reading this, I want you to know that each and every single one of you has impacted me and molded me into the person I am right now. To me, you are more than just the girls down the hall, the guys on my floor, the girls in my sorority, the group I ran into in the elevator, or the people in the drUNK group chat.

*DISCLAIMER* we did act as classy as we looked in this pic, hahaha.

You are the first people I met.

cute face skye, lol.

You are the first friends I made in college.

You are my sisters.

The girls I cry to. The guys who make me feel better after a rough night. The girls who brought me ice cream after the news about Ziera. The people who can make me laugh in any situation.

the time we drove to Crete and didn't have enough money for gas to go back.

After some time, we will grow apart. We will become strangers. And sure, a lot of us probably do not or will not talk anymore after this year. If we do, it won't be more than an awkward smile or a hey, how are you. But I want you to know that because of you, I will not be able to leave this place without feeling like I am leaving a part of me. You are the reason that I will go back to my house in Norfolk and feel so home sick that my stomach hurts. You will make the next couple days of goodbyes harder than any goodbye I have ever had to say. You have exceeded my expectations. You helped me discover that life is about so much more than an education. It's about experiences. It's the spontaneous trip to Crete, the random trips to Lincoln, the unsolicited loitering in the Kearney Community Theater parking lot while we talk about our temporary inconveniences.

girl gang kinda Saturday.

And in a matter of weeks, I know that most of us will just be strangers. So if there is anything you take away from this, just know that YOU have made the last nine months of my college experience, an entire life worth knowing and living. Thank you for making the goodbyes so hard. I love you always and forever!!!

this one is for you!

- karen reynolds