People say you go to college to find something new, but we both ended up at MTSU and found something familiar instead. We grew up in East Tennessee, close enough that our paths probably should’ve crossed, but never did. We likely went to the same spots, hiked the same trails, and somehow stayed strangers. It took leaving the mountains and landing in Murfreesboro for our story to actually start. We met at the Aspen pool one afternoon, nothing planned, nothing dramatic. That summer, our friend groups slowly became one, and without either of us forcing it, we just kept ending up in the same places, with the same people. Somewhere in all of those pool days, long nights, and shared circles, we found each other. What started as a coincidence turned into something solid. We didn’t go looking for it, but college gave us exactly what we didn’t know we needed: a piece of home, and each other.