I’ve been thinking about writing this reflection since I was elected co-editor-in-chief of The Emory Wheel over a year ago. To be honest, I was dreading it. Previously, I worked in the news section for years, doing everything I could to ensure my individuality started and ended with my name in the byline. I hate writing about myself — so, instead, I want to dedicate my last piece for the Wheel to my college apartment and the people I grew to love while living there.
For the past two years, I lived with my roommates — Katie, Tallulah and Teresa — in an apartment on Emory University’s Clairmont Campus. The burners on our stove always smelled like they were actively on fire, the apartment was constantly freezing and the students who lived above us sounded like they practiced Irish dancing in combat boots at all hours of the night. Worst of all, it was physically impossible to get comfortable on the fake leather couch Emory provided with the apartment.
Despite all of this, it was our own little home. Some of my favorite college memories were made on that crappy couch watching far too many horrible rom-coms — the type where the main characters are ridiculously insufferable but always get together at the end. When I think of college after graduation, I will remember all the evenings I spent watching those movies with my roommates, our jokes turning from whispers to squeals until it was difficult to hear the characters confess that they thought they would never find love until they met each other.
I always had mixed feelings about the characters’ declarations about love. Because of my family in Texas, I never questioned if love existed in my life — they showed me from a young age that love was not just romantic, but a synonym for home. However, on a few lonely nights during my first two years at Emory, I questioned if this type of love existed for me to find in Atlanta, or if I left it all behind 800 miles away in Texas.
When I moved in with my roommates during my junior year, they answered that question.
After moving in, Katie, Tallulah and Teresa immediately filled our apartment with love. We used the stove to make dinner together before driving down the road to get ice cream at Andy’s Frozen Custard. We bundled up in hoodies with my cat and Tallulah’s dog to debrief the day’s drama, the conversation dissolving into the pointless details of our weeks when we ran out of gossip.
It was an act of love when Tallulah repeatedly braved Atlanta traffic to drive me to the airport in rush hour. It was an act of love when Katie left a bag of cookies on my bed after I had a particularly hard day at the Wheel and when Teresa was the first person to hug me after I defended my thesis, balloons in hand. And, it was an act of love when all three of my roommates let out high-pitched screams after I finally admitted my now-girlfriend asked me out for the first time, and when they teased me from the sidelines as I grew to love her too.
My roommates did not just show their love for me — they told me every night before bed. Katie, Tallulah and Teresa: Consider this my final goodnight, permanently printed in ink for when I am not there to shout it to you down the hallway after we move out. I know love exists outside the walls of my childhood home because our apartment was full of it. I will miss each of you more than I am talented enough to express in words, but I cannot wait to hear about the new homes you build. See you later, goodnight and I love you.
Madi Olivier (25C), a psychology major from Texas, was the editor-in-chief of The Emory Wheel. On campus, she was also involved in psychology research and the Emory Brain Exercise Initiative. After graduation, she plans to continue working in Emory’s Maney Lab and move to Philadelphia for a gap year before pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
Madi Olivier (she/her) (25C) is from Highland Village, Texas, and is majoring in psychology and minoring in rhetoric, writing and information design. Outside of the Wheel, she is involved in psychology research, the Emory Brain Exercise Initiative and the Trevor Project. In her free time, you can find her trying not to fall while bouldering and obsessively listening to Hozier with her cat.
