Julie

I have a roommate. Her name is Julie. This is the beginning of her story.

About six weeks ago, I moved to Salt Lake City to start a new job for the summer, and moved in with an eclectic mix of girls. Let me give you an example – just minutes after I had begun unpacking my clothes, making my bed, and organizing the room, Julie came in to…chat. An hour and a half later, I had heard the entire story of her gigantic crush on this guy she’d met and the tragedy that he was a bonehead and didn’t talk to her anymore.

At approximately 1:30 a.m., I went to bed, knowing all about this hot guy and not even knowing my roommate’s middle name (by the way, she has two).

And that was just the beginning. I would come home each day to find her watching a different movie – our other roommate had a gigantic movie collection that she was continually expanding. I took her to Lava Hot Springs with me and the most she would put in the water was her big toe (and maybe a few other toes wiggled in too). We went to Smith’s and she left me to find my way around the enormous store alone. She called me on my cell phone half an hour later to inform me that she had finished shopping and was waiting for me at the check-out line.

We drove to the institute building for a fireside and not only was she unsure of how to get there (though she’d been there before), we got lost inside the building and only narrowly escaped an encounter with the men’s bathroom before finally finding the chapel.

And yet…there’s been some fun times, too. I took her shopping and had her take pictures of me with her phone in front of this gorgeous dress in Anthropologie – only to realize that I had my camera in my purse. We took a trip to Wal-Mart to get movies, left a bag there, and had to drive all the way back to get it once we realized it was gone. Then we watched the movie, a scary, creepy one, when we got home, and I’m still not over it. But best of all, Julie was a shoulder to cry on when I was having one of the worst days of my life and I needed to know that someone loved me and that I would get through it.

That’s Julie. Big green eyes, black hair, funky pajama pants, and a huge laugh. My summer just wouldn’t be the same without one crazy roommate to mix things up. And (since I’m writing this for her benefit), life when I return to Idaho probably won’t be quite the same either. A little quieter, perhaps. But definitely not the same.