For two school years prior to this one, I’ve had the pleasure of being surrounded by love and laughter and meeting some of the closest of friends through the most odd circumstances: random roommates. I transferred to Illinois State my sophomore year of college, only knowing a few people from my hometown, and I was basically starting fresh, especially living away from home for the first time ever.
I was set to live at Cardinal Court, the housing services version of apartments for students to try living on their own for the first time, with appliances and other important aspects, before actually going out and doing the thing. I only knew one person before selecting where I wanted to live, a girl I had met on Facebook named Nicole. We had met in an online group for transfer students looking for roommates and instantly clicked because we had the same major. Unfortunately, through the selection process, Nicole and I didn’t initially live together until about October of the first semester, because of circumstances that took place in both of our apartments. I was placed with 4 random roommates. It was so crazy how 3 of us connected instantly, and Nicole came over all the time and was basically an extra roommate before she ended up moving in when a bed became available to her.
The stories we could tell about those four walls could last a lifetime and I could go on and on and then probably cry about how I miss living there.
The next year, Nicole, our roommate Kerrigan, and I moved into a place together not too far off campus. It was a small complex with only 3 other units besides our own. We three tend to have similar personalities and love to watch movies and shows together. After a whole year, Kerrigan and I had finally finished watching all of Glee. This place was where we grew into ourselves and grew out of our shells, I think. We got to express ourselves more without the rules of housing over our heads. We stayed up late, spied on our neighbors once in a while, and went on walks together. We got to feel like big girls for the first time, even if we didn’t want to be ones yet.
This year, I had to take on a big challenge: living alone. While I think I’ve finally got the hang of being away from home now, I don’t think anyone truly prepares you for what it’s like to not live with your friends anymore. That’s the best part about college and being young; you get to do all the stupid things together. While I do love getting to watch whatever I want on the TV, leaving a few dishes out and being messy, sometimes the spaces feel too quiet, and I get a bit too scared at night. I cope by sleeping over at a friend’s house once a week, and she comes to mine often. It makes me feel young, but it also helps to have a person around, someone to fill the empty space.
Sometimes you want to cling to being young when laughter fills the space and makes the most noise, because I wish I could rewind all the clocks and stop time to be 19 years old again.