At St. Bonaventure University, students are required to live on campus, unless they are a commuter, for their freshman, sophomore, and junior years. I have heard of some exceptions, but I feel it is safe to say that this is the standard for how things go here.
So, it being my senior year, I am living in a house located in the next small town over from St. Bonaventure, Allegany. The name of our house is Mecca, and I love it.
I am living with 7 other girlfriends that I have known and loved since the fall semester of freshman year, and my house is divided into a kind of split-style living. By this, I mean that we have four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and bathroom, and a porch on each floor. The only difference in the floors is that the downstairs has a dining room.
We are still scouring Facebook Marketplace for an affordable pop-up card table that we can use upstairs to host some of our dinners.
Decorating is a work in progress, but I think that the fun part is figuring it all out together.
My favorite part of my house is definitely the upstairs porch. One of my bedroom windows actually opens up to the porch and it is so lovely to hear my friends outside talking and laughing while I am doing homework or studying.
I have so many mornings out there sipping coffee and journaling or reading, I can’t wait to have so many more.
I really love my house. And honestly, I feel really fortunate to say that.
Some of the college-student living scenarios are not always the best, I am sure everyone has a story of how they have heard of someone who definitely should not have been living in the place that they were.
As much as I love my house, it is a very weird feeling to not be attached to campus. I find myself, already three weeks into the semester, wondering what the main dining hall on campus looks like because I haven’t been in there in so long.
It is really odd to spend so much time at some place to then not spend time there at all.
I think this is an ode to how I may feel come May of this upcoming year.
*Queue the tears.*
There is probably some enlightenment in having seniors live off campus. One last hooray, but also preparing yourself for the reality of graduating.
With this, I have been trying to reflect on my time spent at St. Bonaventure by remembering my life spent living on campus while staying in the moment of every day.
I have a tendency to focus on the past so much that it gets in the way of focusing on what I am doing right now.
It has been really wonderful to keep my time here in mind and continue to move forward. Plus, it is not hard to find gratuity and grace with your memories and current moments when you have a great living situation and its with your best friends that you met freshman year.