As my junior year of college comes to a close, I have begun to reflect on my past three years at Gustavus. I find myself ruminating on the fact that I got incredibly lucky in terms of my roommate situation. And, if you would have asked me three years ago if I would be living with my current roommate, my answer would have been "heck no".
Why, you may ask? I never planned to live with my roommate, Anika. I had the plans set to live with someone else I was very close to my freshman year. And I was excited! Anika was the girl who lived next door to me freshman year that I didn't see that often because we were both too busy to knock on each other's doors (or too tired, in my case). I never had any ill feelings--she was quiet, didn't heat up brussel sprouts in her microwave, and didn't expect us to be silent neighbors. A pretty good freshman year neighbor, if I do say so myself.
But for whatever reason, I didn't end up becoming incredibly close to Anika during my freshman year at Gustavus. So when the roommate I had signed up to live with for my sophomore year pulled out in mid-July while I was hiding in a bathroom stall trying to take a breath during a day-camp from our housing agreement I saw her name on the list of sophomores looking for roommates and sent her a snap message. Yup, I didn't even have her number. And I wouldn't get it until about October (over a month living together).
Naturally, I was nervous: we had barely talked the year before and we had completely different lives and interests. But at least I knew her. All the other girls on the list were pretty much strangers, so I figured it was better to be familiar with my roommate than a complete stranger.
Luckily, she responded positively and we started making plans for the next year. She'd bring the microwave (of which I would break the microwave plate the following March) and the fridge. I'd bring the rug and the floor-lamp.
I didn't have much time to think about the fact that it may be awkward to live with someone I knew by acquaintance due to my job as a summer camp counselor that kept me occupied 23 hours out of the day six days a week. That is, until I got done at camp and had three weeks to think about the coming school year. But I did not let the potential awkwardness drown out the innate good feeling I had about the coming year.
Something inside of me kept whispering to me:
"It'll work out"
"You'll enjoy living with her"
"Next year will be great"
And I certainly didn't not believe those sentiments, but it was hard not to think about all the things that could go wrong (just me?). Move in day grew nearer and we kept talking about surface-level roommate things and I kept worrying, as I do. On actual move-in day it turned out I moved in a day earlier than her for band auditions and work training and I was gone when she arrived the next day. Thus, our first time together in the room was that night as we went to sleep.
That first night was not picture-perfect, to say the least, the fan we had made rattling noises as we laid in silence wondering whether or not we should say anything. And neither of us got up to fix it because we didn't want to test the water quite yet. But I can confidently say that things got better and are great. If they weren't we wouldn't be living together and almost at the end of our second year together while looking forward to a semester sharing a room, but in an apartment this time around.
Take chances y'all, because it just might work out.
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