My Special Roommate
By: MSM
I have a special roommate
A roommate so divine.
She’s a freshman just like me.
This roommate is mine.
She walks the halls alone
With headphones in her ears
As she looks at the other roommates
With no social fears.Â
She never disturbs meÂ
Or makes me lose my mind
Except when she loses her phone
That, she can never find.
She glides through life
Too fast for the living eye to see.
She’s still so unknown to the world.Â
That special roommate is me.
I love poetry. I love how a few simple stanzas can be put together to create such a beautiful work of art. Poetry has always been my go-to coping mechanism when I’m feeling down, happy, angry, or excited. I even did a whole project centered around why poetry should be used as a form of therapy for my 10th-grade project (which did not get the grade it so rightfully deserved). Now, I don’t want to keep going on and on about how wonderful poetry is (I’ll save that for another post), but I want to talk about something that I recently got myself into as a first-year college student.Â
As you can tell from the title and content of the poem, this article will center around single-dorm living and being your own roommate, or as I like to call it, being a roommate to yourself. I’m sure a bunch of students were lucky— or unlucky— enough to score a single dorm for their first year of college. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have their own space where they can come back to after having classes all day and relax without worrying about another person living with you? It’s great, nice, and new, but it can also be tough, lonely, and scary. Being a roommate to yourself can bring a whirlwind of experiences and emotions, and it’s not always talked about as much as being a roommate to someone else. I want to take this space to talk about my new experience of being my own roommate and show a side to some of you that you’ve never known before. Let’s get into it!
When I first applied to college, I dreaded the idea of having a roommate. I absolutely did not like the idea of sharing a small space with another person I knew nothing about and having to get dressed in front of them. I was also against the notion that I had to share a bathroom and shower with a whole floor. I went on an entire rant in my house about this— just ask my mom. As soon as the application opened for campus housing, I noted that I wanted to have a single dorm in whichever first-year residence hall. I didn’t care about the building quality or how far away the hall was from my classes, I just NEEDED that single dorm.
A month later, I got an email about my housing placement. I was very eager and nervous to see which residence hall I was to be placed in. I thought about what my possible room was going to look like and how I was going to decorate it (even though I still haven’t decorated my room). I also thought about how I would gloat to my future college friends who had to share a dorm with their annoying roommates. I opened the email and I read the first paragraph:
“(College name) is excited to welcome you to your new home! You will be living in: (Residence Hall), room (Room #) which is a Double.”
Yes, I was placed into a double room. I was to have a roommate and live with another person. All my single-room dreams were washed away and the idea of living alone was just another fantasy— next to meeting BTS and writing a million-dollar, award-winning script. I was to accept my fate and go through with being a roommate to someone else instead of myself.
You might be wondering, “Wasn’t this an introduction to single dorm living?” You’re right, it still is! That was just the beginning. There’s a lot more I can say about how I got from being in a double room to being in a single room, but I don’t want to make this article too lengthy. Long story short, I was given a single dorm after contemplating whether I should just stick with being in a double or emailing the housing department for any available single rooms. An email came up in my college account that read:
“We had a Single room open up on the 10th floor in (residence hall) so we have processed a room change to that space specifically in (Room #)”
I finally got my single room and I was happy. I started to look forward to living on campus. My dreams about decorating my room (still haven’t done yet) and gloating to my future college friends were finally going to come true! Hey, maybe I’ll even get lucky enough to meet BTS and become a million-dollar, award-winning scriptwriter (still hasn’t happened yet, but hopefully soon). Life was starting to get “good” again (I don’t know how to describe it). I was ready to experience the great, nice, and new vibes of being a roommate to myself, I just didn’t know that other, not-so-great vibes could come along with it… Â
To Be Continued.