Classes started less than two weeks ago and the women of 301 have already experienced falling onto our worn-in living room carpet from laughter, screams from hiding behinds doors, meals shared around our kitchen table, and cries as we discuss our questionable taste in boys. And I love knowing that this barely covers the chaos and love of the home that we all have. This is my second year and sadly my last in 301 with some of the best friends I’ve ever had, and as senior year has started, I’ve realized how much I don’t want these moments to go to waste.
Every year of college, when the week would begin, I would always think “If I can just make it to the weekend” every single week. Yet I can tell there’s a difference this year and that mentality has started to fall away, I can feel the finality of it all starting to seep into my days and the way I want to make as many memories as I can with my roommates. It hasn’t made it sad. If anything, it’s made the laughter deeper, the real conversations flow, and the vulnerability natural.
So to the girls of 301; E, K, and S, I want to thank you for the unrelenting support you’ve shown me, the times you’ve let me cry on our living room floor and joined right along with me, and all the moments you’ve called me out when I was 100% wrong. You’ve each shown me how to be a better person, how to love deeper, the power of having friends in your corner, and to know the reality of people that will always be in your life.
And to the new freshmen, to the people who haven’t found their forever friends yet: wait for them. And do not settle for anything less. I promise you, once you find the people who invest in you, champion you even when you don’t think you deserve it, and who love you at your absolute worst, the wait for them will have been worth it.