It takes a long time to grow old friends

Coexistence in my college years

Shraddha Potti

Two years ago, my hand slipped on the knob of my freshman dorm in astonishment as I took in what was my soon-to-be living space. Four pasty walls enclosed a shoebox of furniture and well-worn carpeting. I felt akin to an untrained animal entering its enclosure. Loneliness was painted in the dusty markings on the baseboards, and unfamiliarity lined the soft footsteps in the flooring. My heart slipped through my ribcage. Then I heard her laughter ringing through the hallway and her playful knock on the door.

Two years later, the weight of the world sloughs off my shoulders as I slouch on the couch in my living room. I watch my roommates bustle around me, painting pictures of happy productivity. The clinking of dishes and clicking of keyboards are married to the low hum of the TV playing a no-name Netflix special. The walls are adorned with haphazardly-arranged trinkets and bits of painters’ tape gripping loser lottery tickets and Polaroid close-ups of our faces. Packages pile on the too-small kitchen counter, eagerly waiting to enter our well-rehearsed cycle of speedy consumption and speedier justification. We sling fresh slang from wall to wall, chorusing in delight as we decide on the next week’s laundry list of inside jokes. The light is bright and our lives are young. We are roommates.

These days, I’m starting to sense the beginning of the end. The morning that we disassemble our array of puzzles and divvy up our aggregation of appliances is a finite number of lovely evenings away. It’s the day everything will feel like it comes to a screeching halt, just as our lives as individuals truly and thrillingly begin. When that moment arrives, I see us clustered on the beat-up couch, as we’ve done a million times before, tearful arms squeezing arms with their practiced imprints of love.

I’ll leave a piece of my heart squirming within these four walls. In the meantime, I’ll watch as my roommates grow and conquer and flourish, reverently guarding the intimate and precious memories of our youth. I’ll be prepared to smile and remember when they’re all fabulously wealthy, repeating and repeating: “Of course I know her. She’s my roommate.”