Halloween Prank Wars and Roommates

     As October comes to an end and the last hours of my favorite holiday tick by, I find myself reflecting over not only this month but also on my college life thus far.

     When I first enrolled at Henderson State University I did what most high school seniors do; I signed up to room with one of my friends. The thought of leaving something as important as who I would sleep in the same room with for the next year up to someone in admissions was scary. I had images in my head of Lizzie Borden taking an axe and giving her mother forty whacks. Getting murderer would be just my luck. (Okay, so not really....but I still didn't want to take the chance of getting someone I wouldn't get along with.) And it was good. It really was. I know you've probably been told that friends shouldn't live together, that you'll end up hating each other before Christmas break rolls around. And in some cases that's true. But not in all. Mine wasn't like that. We got along great, or as well as anyone can while living in a confined space. 

     However, for my second year I chose a different living arrangement. It had nothing to do with my old roommate. We are still really good friends, and I go to her apartment every Thursday to eat really unhealthy food and watch Grey's Anatomy, a show that we are both equally addicted to. My reason for the change was pretty simple: dorm life wasn't for me. I hated eating in the cafeteria and I didn't really like living five feet apart. Sometimes a little alone time is all anybody really needs. When you spend hours surrounded by people, the one thing that you really want to do is go put on your pjs, climb in bed, and binge watch Netflix. That's hard to do, though, if your roommate has friends over or is playing music. It's not like you can tell them what to do; they pay as much to live there as you do. So being able to cook my own food and have the ability to shut my own door when I want to were two very important luxuries that I realized I had taken for granted while living at home. So I moved out. I now live in an apartment and I cannot fully express to you how much I love it. I am ten times happier than I was last year. Living in a dorm is great for some people, but it just wasn't for me.

     In addition to living in a new environment, I also live with three people that I didn't know existed a year ago. One of them I became really good friends with my first semester here, one I had met a handful of times, and one I didn't meet until the day I moved in. But it has been an AMAZING experience. One of the things that brought us together has been bonding over the silliest and the simplest things. For instance, with the arrival of October, the Halloween Prank War began. Honestly I don't even really know how it started, but we have all enjoyed playing pranks on each other. We have a creepy skeleton, as well as a bloody hand, that have both been found in clothes baskets, the refrigerator, hanging behind one of our doors by fishing line, dangling from our shower heads, in the pantry, in the dryer, under the couch, in our drawers, and even in a large fruit snack box. I can't tell you how many times we have screamed and then threatened to kill each other all while laughing so hard that tears ran down our faces or we got the hiccups (yes, Kaitlynn, I'm talking about you!). We have so much fun together, and I hate to think about how life would be if I hadn't made the decision to branch out and take a chance. 

     I know how you feel. You don't know anyone. You want a little bit of comfort, some type of familiarity in this crazy new life. So you're more than likely going to sign up to live with the person that you've known your whole life, and that's okay. Maybe it works out for you, maybe it doesn't. But just know that you won't always be lonely. You're not always going to feel like you don't know anyone. You're going to make life-long friends and you might eventually decide to live with them. And it may not be because there was anything wrong with your previous roommate, but simply because it's the best thing for you. 

     So I leave you to think about what you want to do when it comes to your living arrangements. Are you going to be bold and hope for the best, or rely on comfort and move in with someone who you already know every detail about? The decision is yours. And while you ponder that, I'm going to sit out the remaining hours of my favorite month and drink coffee, as I patiently wait on my roommates to return home and find the skeleton in one of the bathroom cabinets and the severed hand in the freezer.

     Happy Halloween!