Let me just start by saying: I am moving off-campus next semester. I am looking forward to it, I have been looking forward to it for a while and I am very, very excited to have a room to myself and a kitchen that’s larger than a closet. Getting a place off-campus feels like a rite of passage — I’m hurtling closer and closer to actual adulthood, and my lease (plus my recently revamped LinkedIn profile) is concrete proof of that.
But there’s a large part of me that’s going to miss my dorm room. As somebody who thinks she’s a lot funnier than she actually is, I secretly love repurposing the truly crappy parts of my life into comedy, or motivation, or as something to talk about instead of my truly horrific attempts at genuine flirting (anybody who's been on a date with me and has heard the story of how I broke my nose in middle school can confirm this one).
I don’t think that in my triplex next year I’m going to get stories on how I met all of my suitemates for the first time because our shower drain vomited up black mold, or how I accidentally interrupted a Bible study by bringing my girlfriend back home after a date, or how I managed to get a noise complaint while watching the entirety of “What Would Ryan Lochte Do” on my birthday. There’s something beautiful and painful and deeply funny about college shoving a bunch of people with different backgrounds, sexual appetites and tastes in music (this one goes out to my Blake Shelton-loving suitemate) into a VERY condensed space and expecting us to get along.
What’s even funnier is that it works. I’m going to miss the people I live with. I’m going to miss the flash of sisterhood that comes from having to give a complete stranger a tampon. I'm I’m going to miss the people who get way too into holidays and put up Halloween decorations in September and tinsel in November. I’m going to miss the spontaneity of forming friendships on the hall. I’m even going to miss the bathrooms, but that’s mostly because Carmichael suites have two stalls instead of the one toilet that I’ll be sharing next year, and I love scrolling Twitter in there for at least 10 minutes a visit.
I will miss the people that I’ve met, the ones that flood your hallway and decide to pregame loudly in dorm rooms after midnight and take you to your first pride parade and unexpectedly make you laugh when you’re mad at your other friends and getting home late from work and slowly but surely dying from your media law readings. You don’t have to be best friends with the people you live with in a dorm. But you can be. I'll miss that potential.
