Throughout my life, I have been lucky enough to have amazing friends by my side. I was taught early on that I should value my friendships and put effort into relationships with people I care about. Of course, I have had some friendships that ended up being toxic, or the two of us drifted apart for one reason or another. Recently though, I have been thinking about how great my friends really are.
I met my current suitemates just a year ago when we were all college first-years living in the same dorm building. All of our classes were held online because of Covid, so we had plenty of time to get to know each other since there wasn’t much else to do. We quickly became friends, and when it came time to select housing for the next semester, we all awkwardly asked each other if we were going to share a suite, worried that one of us may have other plans we didn’t yet know about.
Coming from a family that had family dinners several nights a week, I was worried that coming to college I wouldn’t feel completely at home. Now, when I visit home, I miss my family at school; my best friends who always brighten my day, and who always have my back.
We often sit in our common room, discussing our lives, bouncing our current conundrums off of each other for advice, or discussing our respective wedding plans (as cliche as that sounds), and I am honestly confident that we will all be at each other’s weddings.
One of the most important values I find in these friends is their unwavering support. Whenever I need words of encouragement, someone is there to give them to me, when I need to practice for an interview, or if I just need a hug, someone is there; not once have I felt negative after spending time with these people, and I spend a lot of time with them.
I remember one night all four of us came back from a party, I was exhausted and I quickly fell asleep listening to their voices debrief our night, but woke up about an hour later to my suitemates and some other friends in our common room singing along to “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King. This is a classic song that everyone remembered existed when it was featured on Euphoria’s most recent season. Of all the songs to wake up to my friends singing, I wasn’t mad about the choice—it seemed pretty fitting.
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