My Love Letter to Junior Year
I just got a text from Paddywagons.
“Paddy Wagon USF Buy1GetSame
Offer, TODAY, Restrictions Apply
Limit One Per Customer”
It’s the same message they’ve sent every Thursday. But every time it hits my phone, I’m immediately taken back to junior year—when that text wasn’t just a promotion. It was the start of the night. It was the green light. It meant “everyone’s going,” no questions asked.
Junior year of college was, without a doubt, the best year of my life. I lived with my four best friends—Anna Kate, Kat, Megan, and Brenna. We had already spent a full year together under one roof, so by that point, we were more like a family than roommates. We did everything together. I went to the gym with Anna Kate every morning. Megan and I made dinner together most nights. Bren and I shared clothes, we all shared meals, Kat and I watched Rom Coms on the couch, we all shared way too much personal information. Our rooms were rarely just ours—we’d end up all piled on someone’s bed or couch, talking, laughing, decompressing. The apartment felt alive every minute of the day.
Just down the hall from us was another apartment—five of our best guy friends. The door might as well have been off the hinges, because we were in and out of each other’s places constantly. Whether it was a weekday drink, an impromptu group therapy session, or just flopping onto someone’s couch because you didn’t feel like being alone, we were always together.
And if that wasn’t lucky enough, we had another crew of five guy friends living on the sixth floor. That was Brody’s apartment. And as I’m writing this, Brody just married Anna Kate last week—one of my best friends marrying one of our favorite guys from upstairs—which honestly makes the whole thing feel even more like a movie. The upstairs guys were just as much a part of our everyday life as the ones on our floor. They were dependable, hilarious, the kind of people who made any average Tuesday feel like a memory.
One of my favorite moments was during a hurricane. Classes were canceled, the weather was awful, and somehow that turned into a full-blown beer pong tournament. Twenty of us showed up, bracket-style, hyped as if we were competing in the U.S. Open. Anna Kate and I won, (no flex) but nothing compares to the closeness. The effortlessness. The warmth of being surrounded by people you loved with zero pretense.
Nothing back then was over-planned. That was the magic. Someone would yell “Paddy’s?” from the hallway, and twenty minutes later, we were all there. Drinks in hand, talking over each other, like the world outside our little ecosystem didn’t exist. And for a while, it didn’t.
From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, I was surrounded by love, support, laughter, and this intangible sense of belonging. It’s the only time in my life where I’ve felt completely wrapped up in a community—where I didn’t have to think about how to ask for support, because it was already there.
These people are still my people. We just came back from Anna Kate and Brody’s wedding, and I shed a few tears when I saw the guys again. Not from sadness, but from overwhelming joy and pride. Because we built something so good. So rare. So safe. And we’ve managed to carry that closeness into this new chapter of our lives.
I’m proud of who I chose.
Proud to have shared those years with Anna Kate, Kat, Megan, and Brenna—four of the most deeply supportive, loyal, hilarious women I’ve ever known. Proud of the guy friends we surrounded ourselves with, who were thoughtful and steady and showed up like brothers.
Junior year didn’t feel special because of big events or milestones. It felt special because of the day-to-day—the ease, the laughter, the way everything felt alive and shared. That year taught me how good it feels to be seen and loved by the people you do life with, every single day.
So, this is my love letter to junior year.
To the 3 a.m. conversations, to the last-minute plans that somehow became traditions.
To the hurricanes, the hangovers, the hallway hugs.
To the people who made everything feel light.