I used to think I’d be thrilled to end something that has taken up so much of my energy and time. There are times when I would entertain the idea of how my college experience would have been different had I not worked for the Spectator: The late nights that could have been spent sleeping instead of transcribing interviews. How free my schedule would look without the 9+ interviews each week as a writer. The uneasiness that would not leave me until finally submitting the article. How there could have been more Taco Tuesday nights. The metaphorical white hairs I would not metaphorically have. I think about all of this, and it is difficult to imagine a life where I had not signed a form asking if I agreed to the above statements of responsibilities and conditions during my freshman year.
It’s amazing when I think back to all that I’ve done in the name of the Spectator. But I am an all or nothing kind of person in that way, and so that is how it went.
As stressful as it was at times, I do not believe any other collective experience in college could have taught me so much. I’m not just talking about the awareness for a community that was my home for four years, issues large and larger, and people. I’m talking about being thrown into situations that allowed me to further examine myself. I’m a firm believer that the more experiences, the better—good and bad. And I got a bunch of that.
That is why it is difficult to imagine a life where I did not sign four years of my life over to the Spectator. I cannot think of anything else that could have challenged, empowered, and humbled me in so many more ways. I cannot think of anything else that could have reminded me about second chances and how people will always be so surprising. I cannot think of anything else that could have challenged my ideas of what it is to be human, and how we can choose in our every day lives to be human with one another.
Some people measure their lives on what position of power they were able to raise themselves and the status they can hold in society. As for myself, it’s not about the power. It’s never been about working for the awards. Fuck the recognition. Those are superficial things that oftentimes do not reflect accurately what really happens.
Because this is what really happened: I’ve met people through the Spectator that have made this wild ride tolerable and enjoyable. They are intelligent, bold, witty, hardworking, and they have taught me more than they will ever realize. In the end, I will never think back about status or awards or those things that don’t matter. What will always matter is the in between. And in between the time I started at the Spectator, and as the last layout night is approaching, I find myself all of a sudden saddened. I am sad that we will no longer share Tuesday nights together with shared stress and shared fun. I am sad that I will no longer see these people often. And I am sad that our time of growing together will soon be done separately.
College without the Spectator is not only difficult, but painful, to think about because I think about how I would have missed out on these relationships—the only lasting things that can be taken away from temporary experiences.
The Spectator has put me through the ringer in more ways than one.
But it’s the people who have made the passage through hell bearable, and—
dededos
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