What I'm thankful for: My people
The word “thankful” does not even come close to how I feel about my time here at UD. I may not have been here for long — just a semester — but the time I have spent here has been nothing short of incredible.
Before starting my time at UD, I knew about the legendary community surrounding this school and the people within it. I did not know, however, how much my life would be affected by the people I would meet.
On a Friday in mid-August, I moved into my room in Marycrest. This is when I met my roommate for the very first time, and we worried about the people on our floor. I remember telling her,
“We haven’t even met them yet, but I don’t think they like us.”
Fast forward two weeks later and we had found a few friends, but still had hardly spoken to the girls on our floor, and we were starting to get concerned.
One afternoon, I ran into a girl who lives across the hall from us. Walking hurriedly to the elevator to get to the laundry room, basket in hand, she simply asked me, “Can we hang out sometime?” As I was also in a hurry and not paying attention, I simply replied, “Yes,” and went on my way. It didn’t occur to me until after we had gone our separate ways that I had actually agreed.
Little did I know this moment would not only create a wonderful new friendship between the two of us but also birth an entire friend group.
This second family we built includes 11 girls: four from Chicago, two from New York, one from Connecticut, one from Los Angeles, one from Tennessee, and another from Cleveland; and I am from Toledo, Ohio. Almost all of us have different majors, from biology to education. We love to have “family dinners” where we schedule a time where we can take a break from school work and everything else in our lives to just sit down and talk. It is so relieving to be able to sit down with so many smiling faces after a long day of classes and take a break from the stresses of being a college student.
In addition to our dinners, we love to crowd into someone’s room to sit and talk or go to the library for a study session or attend events on campus. These girls make my busy day feel like it is slowing down, even though I can never not be busy while I am with them.
These relationships and memories I have built so far are things that I am only able to thank the University of Dayton for. Now, a few months since that day at the elevator, I can look back at the small moments that brought my friends and me closer together, and I cannot be more grateful this Thanksgiving.
