I've had a lot of roommates over the past six years. Some have been given to me while others have willfully taken me in like a stray cat that is woefully in need of a hot bath and a co-conspirator. However, I've never had a roommate that hasn't taught me at least one important fact about myself, life or common decency.
I attended a residential high school for art students during my last two years of high school. Yes, I was a weird art student, but we can move past all of that. During my two years, I had six sets of roommates and numerous other suitemates, so I met some pretty interesting people. My first roommate, a lovely and very intelligent girl whom I'm sure will be far more successful in life than I will be, was an odd first roommate for a girl like me.
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I was overweight, homely and a catty judgmental girl on the inside, so I quickly made excuses in order to escape the confines of my living arrangement. To be honest, the only thing that this girl and I had in common was a mutual love for coffee. While she liked to live on the go, simultaneously leaving spilled sugar on different surfaces of our dorm, I was, and always will be, a neurotic mess about the state of my living space. Needless to say, we quickly parted ways but continued to remain cordial in the lunch and dinner lines.
My next set of roommates were two hysterical girls after my own heart, and they were weird in the way that we were soulmates for that one year of living together. They took me in, and we took long walks together to a nearby bakery often. They were the first friends that I had who made me feel like I was okay being me. Next, I moved in with my best friend. I know what you're thinking. Danger, Will Robinson!
The truth is that no matter how many times you hear that it's a bad idea to move in with friends and to share a confined living space with people that you see as your confidants, you have to learn for yourself the hard way. In my case, the hard way was going to my dorm during lunch one afternoon, hearing the news from my friend that she was kicking me out and finding that another friend of hers was moving in instead. I'm still friends with her, and everyone seemed to benefit from the tiny bomb that was dropped on me during that lunch period. But talk about serious trust issues.
College was scary. I remember arriving to orientation at the University of Southern Mississippi and actually throwing a fit that Kim Kardashian would have been proud of because they kicked my mom out and made me participate in camp-like activities that included, but were not limited to, covering ourselves in gold paint, making nice with other strangers and eating mysterious pizza from the cafeteria.
Thankfully, my first roommate was one of the soulmates that I mentioned from high school. We were best friends at the time, and we were odd enough to have differences that made us increasingly similar. She liked boys a lot, she was smart and funny and she always had good advice for me, whereas I was depressed, cynical and continued to try to become more optimistic and self-confident like her. We went our separate ways because she went to France to study abroad, and I found other friends who weren't leaving the country. For the first time in my young adult life, I tried to branch out.
I was a photojournalism major with a wide group of friends ranging from the quiet introvert to the class clown. I had friends who bought me vodka on Valentine's Day because I was sad, and then we all proceeded to drink in my dorm room while I wrote a paper on writing leads for mass communication. I made a C on the paper, and that was the first and last time I tried to mix alcohol and collegiate success. This leads me to last roommates.
I got my first apartment with every girl's best gay guy friend and a girl who was my best friend. Remember when I mentioned that people will continue to tell you not to live with your friends? We're all masochists when it comes to life lessons. I loved my roommates. There were frustrating times for us in that three-bedroom apartment. Bringing home strangers, bringing home significant others, not cleaning dishes, eating each other's food and earning gold medals in surpassing personal boundaries were only a few of the discrepancies that we dealt with.
On the other hand, I made some of the best memories with those guys. We would turn on Pandora and slurp down daiquiris while we all danced in our underwear, make family dinners and grocery shop in the middle of the night because we all disliked people. I look back and wonder what my life would have become if we had continued to live together, but at this time my anxiety was growing with each day, and my grandmother's death made me reconsider everything that I was doing at the time.
Now, I live with my mom. It's great. No rent, familiarity, and the freedom to come and go is awesome. I love my mom. I'm grateful that she's willing to have me as a roommate, but every time we argue over the electricity bill or the lint in the dryer, I can't help but to miss the roommates that I've known and lost over the years. So, here's to all of my roommates past, future and present. Thank you to those who have not murdered me in my sleep, and good vibes to all of those who may have to deal with me in the future.
