Before freshman year, I had never had a roommate. I’m an only child, so my closest experience to having a roommate was sharing a hotel room with my parents on vacation. Coming to TCU, everyone really hyped up the roommate experience. So many people talked about how they met their best friends because they ended up living together freshman year. In my mind, having roommates was going to be like having the sisters that I never had. I was so excited.
Unfortunately, it was a letdown. But no shade to my old roommates β I still talk to them occasionally and have nothing but amazing things to say about them! They are both so funny and so kind. But they were both from California, and I was the girl from one of the fly-over Midwest states. They just had a lot more in common because they could talk about Californian things, and as a result, I often felt like the odd girl out. Adding in the fact that we all three were different majors and all three were in different sororities, it was clear that the “perfect” roommate sisterhood I dreamed about wouldn’t come to fruition.
Going into sophomore year, I was excited to have a single room in my sorority house. Having my own space was something that I was much more used to β what could go wrong?
While I admit, the naps without interruptions were a literal chef’s kiss, living alone was actually nothing like what I thought it would be at all. I constantly felt alone. And while my friends with roommates were off getting dinner together, walking to class together, and studying together, it felt like I had no one. It got to the point where I was spending every minute that I wasn’t in class in my room by myself. I stopped doing the things I loved, and I started to hate school because all I was doing was studying. I found myself in a really dark hole and didn’t know how to get out.
So, when the opportunity for me to move in with one of my closest friends, Kate, presented itself, I couldn’t say no. It was clear that God was looking out for me, and He was offering me a way out of the darkness.
Original photo by Alexandra Barker
Living with Kate has been the roommate scenario I craved. We’ll grab breakfast and walk to classes together, we’ll throw pillows at one another when we have a hard time waking up for class, and we’ll have nightly debriefs, during which we update each other on our major life events of the day.
Even if Kate and I hadn’t clicked as roommates like I wanted, I still would’ve chosen to live with her rather than live alone. It would take a lot for me to return to living alone.
In both roommate situations, I’ve learned how comforting it is to just have people around to talk to. Part of my loneliness while living alone stemmed from the fact that I never talked to anyone β I’d just go to class and come home, never really having any sort of human connection. Knowing that at the end of the day, even if I haven’t been chatty in class, I can come home and talk to another person about my day makes me feel much less alone.
I’ve also learned that having roommates keeps me accountable. Thoughts like “I can’t stay up super late tonight because my roomie is going to bed early and she needs good sleep for her exam tomorrow,” or “My roomie started going to the Rec and trying out some of their scheduled classes, maybe I should too,” help keep me motivated and disciplined, and ultimately, help me be the best version of myself that I want to be.