but then I got back to the dorms.
It was quiet, the hall was lined with stuff girls had started to move out of their rooms.
A true sign the end of the semester has arrived.
Soon this hall will have new RA's. Ones that will most certainly be good at their job, but they won't be like my RA's. The RA's I've called my best friends these last two years. How does that even happen?
How can you become so close with people you have only known for such a seemingly short period of time? I'm not sure how - but I am assuming it has to do with the fact that you live with them - you share every single day with them. Good, bad, and, ugly. They take care of you like your family used to. They push you to do hard things you feel so accomplished after achieving and convince you that those discounted shorts really are cute. You stay up way to late doing "homework" with them, eating ice cream you shouldn't be eating, and laughing till you pee your pants because someone just couldn't handle that embarrassing story. They argue with you just as much as your siblings do because they care about you and sometimes spending too much time together makes everyone a little crazy. You know just what to say to make them upset, and you learn just how cruel your own words can be in a real sh***y way. They know just how to build you up and when nothing seems to work - they call on the One who does. You spend time in massive book stores looking for the funniest and cheapest movies to buy and watch. You share closets. You play hide and seek in wal mart - but make sure to be back before curfew. You sing horribly auto-tuned songs at the top of your lungs, and dance at any opportunity. You facebook message all summer about culture and music and being quiet. You have meetings in the schools pride and joy of a monument, the "Monoptotron" and just share space.
Community has been built here. I have found my identity and lost it too. I have climbed physical mountains and metaphorical ones with them. They took me under there wing as baby chlo, the freshman. And now, as a rising Junior I am thankful for their wisdom, stupidity, willingness to listen and be silly, to teach me, and to love me when I know I was so so unlovable.
Something I've figured out by laying here is you never seem to remember how you became such close friends. Maybe the first time you saw each other or when you talked the first time, but I honestly can't remember a day I said "he or she will be one of my life long friends" it just sort of happened. And I consider that to be the most beautiful thing.
I remember when she told me she wouldn't be coming back - how I wanted so badly for it to be a joke.
Or when I needed to be honest with how terrified I am about sitting alone.
How she came into my room to drop something off - and all we could do was cry - because growing up is scary,
I just want the class of 2015 - associate degrees and beyond to know how thankful I am for them. Whether you have been my friend the last 2 years (which seems like a lifetime) or just in this last semester. Keeping me safe on a crazy packed subway car, or leading me to be more like Jesus in all my friendships, allowing me to be vulnerable. Maybe you don't even know how I looked up to you, but my mission is that I can be that for some underclassmen as well. Because it is a real gift to have someone care like y'all have.
Change has never been an easy thing for me. And this is a pretty huge change for all of us. The graduates I had to hug tonight knowing they won't be here in the same way ever again. The moving out of the dorms, some of us back home, some to start careers, others to wait for graduate school or an internship in the area this summer. I paid my first rent check today - well after crying about it and getting help from my dad. Others have already picked up their keys, sent in their referrals for a new job, etc.
Like I said before the halls are becoming a place that looks more like a Saturday morning yard sale than dorms. Room 209 has bare walls and their own attempt at starting the packing process. My roommate has come much further in this than I have - with sickness settled into my lungs - and 4 exams meeting me next week starting Monday morning - I haven't really wanted to deal with packing up this life. But I will have to eventually.
You can't start a new adventure when you're sitting at the end of another.
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