The Roommate

Everyone at some point in his or her life has a roommate. When you are a freshman in college you are put in a small, cramped space with another person that you usually have never met before and you are forced to live together for a year. One of the hardest things is getting know this person while they are getting to know you. This is difficult because you are kind of forced to get along. In most cases you can’t really substitute your roommate for another. So while you get to know this person you also get to know the parts of them that most other people do not see. A bedroom tells a lot about a person. Whether they are messy or orderly, whether they like to decorate and are creative or if they like the emptiness of white walls. You get to see their personalities at their fullest. You get to know one another sleeping patterns and what annoys each other the most. You can come out of this experience best friends or worst enemies.

I was lucky my freshman year. I was put with an amazing roommate. We got a long from the moment we met. We found out that we both have loud, crazy personalities and that we are both closeted nerds. She loved fashion, I loved clothes. I loved music, she loved to ‘get low.’ She was somewhat the yin to my yang or I the yin to her yang. We balanced each other out. We became so close that we would go on midnight runs together then scarf down food at Iggys right after. We enjoyed each other’s company and never had one argument. We found we could talk about anything with each other. Even though we hung out with different groups during the day, when we were together it was definitely the Paige and Alyssa show.

We grew so close that one of the saddest things was when the year was up and we would no longer be roommates. She was moving into an apartment with her boyfriend and I was moving into a house with three of my fellow Lion’s Den co-workers. When we said our goodbyes we promised each other we would hang out all the time. It would be like we were still roommates. That summer, we did. We hung out a lot and had many adventures. Sadly though once school started we began to hang out less and less. We grew to busy and it was hard making time with our completely opposite but equally busy schedules.

Currently we are still trying to figure out how to get together. We have decided that we are going to take an upper division core together next year so that we will be able to see each other at least two to three times a week. This summer we want to start up our runs to the beach again. We want to make an effort to get our friendship back and be as close as we were when we lived together.

My experience with my roommate taught me a lot about myself and how to live with another person. It made me more open to accepting people's routines even when they didn't completely match up with mine. Also, it taught me to be open to letting new people into my life because we will never know if those people will become one of our best friends.

--Alyssa Bermudes