Dear tenants of Bolling Hall 223,

As your time in my old dorm is coming to a close, I'm sure you have made plenty of memories. Some exciting memories, some sad ones, I'm sure some anxious and nerve-racking ones. Your dorm that you are living in now has housed some of the most unforgettable moments and created some unbreakable bonds. I hope you have that as well.

Living in a dorm was made out to be a hot, sticky, small, unpleasant experience. But, I am sure you have figured out that those remarks don't apply to you. I mean, you really lucked out. Your room is huge, your AC and heat are controlled by you, you get a nice sized closet, you have your own bathroom, and you are right next to a stairwell that leads you right out to Moffett Quad. Could you have gotten a better room? The answer is no. This dorm was one of the best things about my freshman year. I hope you have cherished it.

Our room was the one everyone flocked to when they wanted to hang out. I mean, you have the floor-space for about six chairs, bed space for three people, and even a "hallway" where four more people could pop-a-squat. You have probably learned that with many people come lots of noise. I wish I could tell you the exact amount of times we got a noise complaint from our downstairs neighbor. I think the actual count was upwards of one hundred and fifty noise complaints throughout the year. We were never the "quiet" ones.

My roommate and I used to laugh, loudly, at everything. Our laughs would echo down the hall and bounce off of the doors that lined the carpeted hallway. We used to watch shows together, do laundry together, eat together, basically do everything together. Our dorm brought us together. See, we went to the same high school and we were friends, but we weren't best friends. But, man, Bolling 223 brought us so close that we were inseparable. If we were seen one without the other, people used to stop us and ask where the other was. I hope that you guys are half as close as we were because that is what made living together that much more fun.

I'm sure you have love having your own bathroom. My roommate and I had the bathroom schedule down to a pat. We used to work like a well-oiled machine. She would shower and get ready in the mornings because she was the definition of a morning person. I on the other hand, showered at night and was definitely not a morning person. So, she got ready in the almost sound-proof bathroom and I would sleep until I had to wake up to make it to class on time. We used to have a speaker in the shower and every morning I would hear an array of songs from Molly Cyrus to Broccoli to Break Up In A Small Town To All In My Head. It was truly the ultimate way to wake up because you never really knew who would be there to wake you up, Sam Hunt or Fetty Wap?

In the bathroom, there were bloodstains from where my roommate lost her toenail one night and we laughed about it for two days straight. In the windowsill that faces Moffett Quad, there were always flowers and decorative items. On the walls, there were monograms, Lilly Pulitzer inspired art, pictures of old friends and high school memories, and homemade crafts. On the floor, there were stains from sticky and sugar-filled drinks from Friday nights and sand from a "stress ball" made at our RA's program that same night. On the beds, there were tears from heartbreaks and sad movies, there were food crumbs and cereal milk spills, and there wrinkled covers from where our friends had slid off of our bed to leave.

You may have made many memories in this dorm and I hope you continue to create more. But, please, remember them because after you leave the dorm, you realize how much you loved it. Once you truly live on your own, you are just that: on your own. There aren't any RA's to help you out, there is no "roommate remediation", there isn't a hall full of people to bond with and get food with. There is you in your own room, you in your lonely kitchen, and you in your own quiet bathroom.

I hope you read this article, tenants of Bolling Hall 223. I hope you have enjoyed your time in this dorm, I hope you have made life-long friends, and I hope your experience was just as great, if not better, than mine.

Sincerely,

Former tenant of Bolling Hall 223, Madison Smith.