Welcome to a series of stories that basically make up my autobiography. It’s not entirely thorough, but I’ll do the best I can with the memories locked away inside my head. Could be therapeutic for me. Could be humorous for you. Either way, enjoy…

Previously on Life Story… As a pre-freshman, I spent a week in Bluefield getting to know the campus of my future alma mater while there on a mission trip.

Ah, freshman year!

It’s an exciting time in the life of a college student. It’s that first taste of freedom. It’s that first taste of adulthood. But there’s still a safety net. Because the college freshman isn’t exactly a full-fledged adult. Yet.

At least, that’s how I assume it still is. For me, I’m not sure how much different my life as a freshman at Bluefield College was from my life as a high school student in my parents’ house. Because here’s the thing… I was always pretty responsible for myself as a teenager. I did my own laundry. I set my own alarm. What else is there?

I wasn’t cooking my own meals back at home. I had Dad for that. But moving to college didn’t mean I was gonna suddenly start doing that, either. That’s what the dining hall was for. And, oh, the choices we had in the dining hall.

Actually, with Bluefield being as small as it was, there weren’t a whole lot of choices at hand. Not compared to some campuses you find in the U.S. But I did like the fact that cereal was available at all times.

Freshman year introduced me to life with a roommate for the first time in my life. I was mostly prepared for what all this would entail. I just wasn’t prepared for how confusing it would be to get settled into things.

It got complicated for a minute. See, during the summer, I got a letter informing me of who my roommate would be. But then a guy I knew from high school told me that he was a late applicant to Bluefield and he wanted to room with me. So we made arrangements for that to happen. And then this guy from high school wound up never actually enrolling. Which meant that my assigned roommate was reassigned. And then I was assigned to someone else at the last minute.

My roommate’s name was Landon. He was coming into Bluefield on an athletic scholarship. We had very little in common. He played baseball. I once went to a minor league baseball game… He liked electronic dance music that was popular in Europe. I knew that Europe was a continent on the other side of the Atlantic… He liked to party and drink the alcohol and stumble into our room at 3:00 a.m. I was pretty sure I’d only seen alcoholic beverages in movies…

We got along great.

That sounds sarcastic, I’m sure. It’s not that we didn’t actually get along. We just didn’t actually have anything in common. So we really didn’t say much to each other. It was an awkward roommate situation. I wasn’t one of those people who gets randomly paired with a stranger in that first semester of college and we end up being the best man in each other’s weddings. Landon and I aren’t even Facebook friends. And I’ll pretty much accept a friend request from anyone I’ve met in real life.

So, starting out, the roommate thing wasn’t ideal. But I didn’t take it like it was a bad omen of things to come… Should it have?