Most people live with other people for a good chunk of their lives, namely family. You share everything with them, and don’t really think twice about it, so when college starts you don’t think much of living with someone else. You might think it’s not all that different, but then you realize your room is REALLY small, and living with someone your age is quite a bit different. I was lucky and adored my roommate my freshman year. Then this summer came around, and I ended up sharing a space with four new people. Now this summer is coming to an end, and I just want to give my two cents on the greatness and downfalls that come with living with roommates.

The first big thing I now know after living with several roommates is that it takes A LOT of effort to keep a house clean. We all work, we all have different schedules and are varying levels of “busy”, so it can be hard to keep things clean. I now have mad respect for stay at home parents of any sort, because geez it is hard to keep things tidy with more than one person living in a space. It can also be ironic because no one really LIKES living in a messy environment, but we all just get too tired/busy/lazy to do it sometimes, so we all just deal with it for a while until one of us caves in and cleans. Once it is clean, we practically bask in the glory of it.

Living with people also taught me that you always have someone to do stuff with. In my case it was a lot of random baking/cooking delicious things at weird hours of the night, or Walmart grocery adventures at midnight when Walmart is less chaotic. You learn a lot about your roommates, and you talk a lot and go on odd adventures; and you fully appreciate them for it. I mean who else would put up with your hyper-but-exhausted-self at weird hours while running around Walmart or finding Pokemon? You have the best conversations with your roommates when you all happen to run into each other at ten pm and you’re all tired and bored. Also, going to Denny’s at a NORMAL time of day becomes the strangest thing when it happens, because your roommate only ever wants it after dark.

Living with roommates can be challenging, mostly because we all have such different personalities, but I wouldn’t have traded them for the world. You can do nothing but grow and learn about yourself and others by living with roommates, and trust me that’s a good thing. We challenge each other, but we support each other, and we became friends. One thing is for sure, I will miss the awesomeness that was living with them all this summer, because honestly, they’re the coolest. But hey, at least now I know I’ll always have people to adventure with, and I am so glad I met them all.