Roommates and Regrets

On Monday, my college roommate received some scary health news which he then passed on to me. It ruined my day.

We’re no longer the closest of friends, but we roomed together for two years and have kept in touch ever since, attending one another’s weddings and catching up at various other functions. It’s an easy relationship, one that has the benefit of not only years, but of closeness.

I think of him whenever I watch the scene in Good Will Hunting when Shawn yells at the professor, “I knew you before you were a mathematical god! When you were pimple-faced and homesick and didn’t know which side of the bed to piss on!” While the specifics are different — neither of us is a math genius or was ever homesick — the sentiment is completely spot-on. You arrive at college a cocky yet insecure 18 year-old and while you’re always trying to shape your public image and persona (especially in the beginning), your roommate sees the real you. No one knows you like your freshman roommate.

Your roommate is there when you transform from the new cool kid on campus back into an adolescent at summer camp when your mom calls that first time. Your roommate is there when you get rejected or get a bad grade. Your roommate wakes you up for class and tells you turn off the TV and go to sleep. Your roommate is an entire support system all rolled into one person. I had friends for years that didn’t know half the stuff he knew about me after only a few weeks. That’s why living assignments are so important (or so they seem at the time).

We had lunch about two years ago, but it doesn’t feel like that long ago. That’s what happens as you get older and busier with work, family, and everything else. Days turn into months and seasons slip by as you keep saying to yourself, “I should call him…” until one day he’s telling you his prognosis and you find yourself wondering why you haven’t visited him.

I’ve lived through the death of a best friend and I have regrets that I’ll never relinquish. When that happens, you say to yourself that it won’t happen again. But it does. That’s human nature. We all get busy. We all have priorities. We all have deadlines. We rarely take time off work to go visit someone, but it’s just accepted that we’ll take a few days for the funeral. By that point it’s too late, isn’t it?

“Live every day as if it’s your last” is a saying we’ve all heard. And while it is poor advice on the surface — most of us would do things that we wouldn’t have to worry about tomorrow, like spend all of our money, quit our job on the spot, pour our heart out to that person for whom we’ve secretly longed for years — the underlying idea that we shouldn’t put off the things we want to do is profound.

In the end, all we’re left with is our memories and our regrets and it’s up to us to decide which one will stay with us forever.

Christopher Pierznik is the author of six books, all of which can be purchased in Paperback, Kindle, and Nook. A former feature contributor and managing editor of I Hate JJ Redick, he has also written for XXL, Please Don’t Stare, Amusing My Bouche, Reading & Writing is for Dumb People, A Series of Very Bad Decisions, and others. He works in finance and spends his evenings changing diapers and drinking craft beer. He once applied to be a cast member on The Real World, but was rejected. You can like his Facebook page here, follow him on Twitter here, and Tumblr here.