From shared laughs to silent frustrations, my roommates have been my greatest teachers. This is a thank-you to the friends who became family—and to those who taught me the hardest lessons in the home we shared.
I’ve had my fair share of roommates and given the price of living; I anticipate that list to continue growing until I’m old and senile. My first official roommates, since I’m the youngest sibling, were my brother and sister. They’ve seen me at my best and worst states (they could argue that I’m always in my worst state), and nobody else truly knew what it was like to watch me just exist. There were no filters, no constant conversations, and I guess you could say I seemed cold. It wasn’t that I tried to be stand-offish or spacey, it’s just that the place I consider my home is my space. I’m not obligated to speak while maintaining good posture or laugh extra hard at a joke that isn’t even funny: I just exist, plain and simple. I wouldn’t say that I’m a particularly different person when at home; I’m still bubbly and say the wrong things at the wrong time.
The first person to see me in this state aside from my siblings was my first-year roommate, who also happened to be one of my high school best friends. I know most people say mixing a preexisting friendship and living accommodations is the epitome of a friendship break-up, but we actually worked pretty well together. She was clean, considerate, and communicative over any disputes we had. Our friendship is probably stronger than it’s ever been since living with her and I still consider her my future maid of honour. So yes, living with a previous friend worked out for the best but that’s definitely not always the case.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had previous roommates that I did not get along with. As the year passed, I learned so much about how immaturely I handled that whole situation. The gist of it is that we didn’t click like we thought we would, and it seeped into our living situation. Anybody who’s had roommates can reflect on infamous horror stories and wonder how they lived through it. Did I get along with those girls? No, but that doesn’t warrant me to disregard how they felt towards me. I can villainize them all I want in my head, but the truth of the situation is that we both had flaws and failed miserably to take accountability for them. Just because we didn’t ‘get along’ doesn’t give me the right to judge their lifestyle and talk bad about them. For all I know, they’re talking absolute trash about me, and that’s okay. I mean, even if I think I had good intentions at the time, they have their perception of me that’s stagnant in time, so I have to be okay with that.
So, my old roommates and I did not go out for weekly beers or laugh until our stomachs hurt, but I wish them nothing but the best. They taught me about perspective, and I probably wouldn’t be able to understand that there are two sides to every story any other way.
This article isn’t to reiterate the dos and don’ts when it comes to living with people but to emphasize that there are always two sides to every story. While I may seem cold to the people I live with at times, I genuinely have no ill intent. There’s an easy way to victimize myself and say that they’re being dramatic, but that’s just the wrong approach. Actually, I’d say it’s a pretty narcissistic approach. While I don’t see anything wrong, they might and that’s because they care, a privilege that most of us forget. Some days we don’t clean like we should, and there are discussions that need to be had on that, but my current roommates are my home, and I should treat them as such.
The girls I currently live with are some of my best friends: we get ready together for our weekly (definitely more often) pitchers of beer, cook together, watch movies, study into the depths of the night, cry together, explain our family lore, and most importantly, love together. We have the gift of having one another to come home to after a long day of all-consuming stress and watching a melancholic 5 pm sunset. In a sense, I think these girls have healed me a bit. This week I spilled a whole jar of Classico sauce, paused in shock, and we all laughed about it while I cleaned it up. There was no fear of being clumsy; just enjoying each other’s mistakes and taking life a bit less seriously when everything seemed so heavy. We came into university as toddlers in my head, at least that’s what I consider seventeen-year-olds, and have experienced immense amounts of loss with a by-product of trust. I trust these girls with my life and God am I blessed for that. We have aged in ways you can only see when reminiscing on old photos or pulling out gray hairs after each exam and I can’t wait to watch us all grow when we leave this chapter and go our separate ways.
Dear all my past and current roommates: thank you for teaching me about love, laughter, annoyance, and anger in my home away from home. Thank you for teaching me to be painfully self-aware and to work on my flaws. Thank you for watching me grow authentically and allowing me to find love within others. I even thank my old roommates who gave me panic attacks weekly. I guess that’s what your twenties are about – being young enough to fail, yet old enough to forgive. To all my roommates, past and present: thank you for leaving a mark that goes beyond walls and leases.