Even as I start to rewrite this column for the umpteenth time, I’m still not exactly sure where it’s going, so please bear with me.
I’ve been toying with the idea of my “final column” for several weeks, and it seems that there are just too many things I want to say that will never make it into this 600-word space. So, for those purposes, I guess it will be best if I just start at the beginning.
In August, over-eager to get a start on Volume 69 of The Knight, I pinned a black and white calendar to the wall next to my desk in our tiny little office on the corner of Seventh and Peach streets.
As I stare at that very same calendar today contemplating how to write all the things I want to say, it’s hitting me harder than ever just how quickly the time has gone.
It feels like just yesterday that I was planning for this year, ready to get started on Issue 1. Now, with No. 24 in the hands of readers, my time at The Knight is done.
I keep thinking I should have taken better notes along the way – entertained more of a photographic memory – because I probably won’t have another opportunity like this again in my life.
But as I reflect, I can happily say that the memories swirling in my head at this moment are all good ones.
I am so proud and thankful of the staff this year for working hard and putting out a good product week after week. They all are so incredible, and they wholly deserve the first-place award that The Knight was granted this year in the American Scholastic Newspaper Association’s annual contest.
Congratulate the staff if you see any of them around campus this week – they deserve it.
But regardless of awards, and even hard work, I feel it completely necessary to say that this staff has become a sort of family to me.
While I’m thrilled with the prospect of my future endeavors, I’m also sufficiently uneasy about letting go of something that has taken up so much of my life this past year. My actual family can testify – I’ve spent more time with the Knight staff than I have with them.
And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
We’re all different, but we all work hard and enjoy each other’s company. It’s not always like that in the newsroom, from what I’ve heard, and I’m so glad that we were able to make this year just as much fun as it was productive.
For me, that’s half of what college is all about. And we achieved it.
I’m going to miss walking into the office and eyeing up the Quote Wall for new additions, catching a staff member snoozing on the most comfortable couch known to man, and listening to “The Price is Right” in the background as I munch on my sandwich from Knight’s Cove.
Heck, I’m even going to miss the torturous Friday morning critique meetings, which, contrary to what I wrote in a previous column, are absolutely my favorite part of every week.
Most of all, I’m going to miss the feeling that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be; exactly what I should be doing with my life at this point.
If anything, all I can hope for in the coming years is that the feeling finds me there, too.
