Adjustments into Fourth Year

It is strange to live in a house that doesn’t feel like your own. The living room walls are covered in old records and plaques from winning tournaments. Collages of previous teams’ memories run across hallways and hide in unsuspecting corners. The carpet, once a mute gray, now dirty and brown from years of use, covers the downstairs floor. The blue walls of my room have held countless pictures and memories leaving white marks from peeled paint chips. After spending three years in a room that belonged to close friends and former teammates, how can I begin to think of this space as my own? 

This is my first year living off campus. For the past three years of my undergraduate career I have lived in residence halls, working as a Residence Hall Advisor for two of those years. Now I’m living off campus in the swim and dive team’s home, which we affectionately call “Fairgrounds”. The house has been passed down through ten different teams, and it is difficult to find a way to make my space feel unique. On one hand, I feel consumed by past memories and legacies of previous tenants, but on the other hand, I want to innovate and create a new social environment where Grinnell College’s Swim and Dive team can come together.  The responsibility of living in a house that serves as a social space every weekend was not a surprise to me, but my ability to manage how my other four housemates and I bring that plan to fruition is. 

Because Fairgrounds holds so much history, there’s a part of me that inevitably feels pressure to live up to past years that have been deemed “super fun” or the “best year ever”. Over my past three years in college, I’ve experienced the house as a space that was open to everyone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and I have also experienced the house open to everyone on select occasions. Finding a balance between claiming a space as my own while simultaneously providing a social space constantly is difficult.  There are nights that I want to go to bed early, but at the same time, I don’t want to deny someone else the ability to find a safe haven in a space that is meant for them to relax and hang out. Throughout this first month of school, I am surprised by how anxious I become knowing that what I want might differ from what I agreed to when I made the decision to live in this house.

Living with housemates is difficult because everyone has their own routine and schedule. People have different expectations of cleanliness and what it means to live with another person, let alone four other people. Learning how to navigate house expectations with friends has proven to be a trial within itself. As a group, we have made not only house rules as way to let incomers know what we expect from them entering our space, but also a housing agreement between us five. This document has helped mitigate issues of who has to take out the trash, who cleans the bathroom, what bill is paid by whom, and other various chores that need to be addressed on a weekly basis. Although it cannot encompass everything we will encounter as housemates, it’s a starting place to help us thrive over the course of this year.

I can only hope for the best moving forward and I hope that the legacy my house leaves will continue on for another ten years. Hopefully our actions are remembered, our additional decorations adorn the walls for years to come, and people remember Fairgrounds 2019-2020 as an inclusive space which provided a safe haven from the stress of school filled with fond memories.

I guess only time will tell…

until next time witches,

anna