Next week is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. The entire day (or week, if you’re like me) revolves around cooking, baking, spending time with family, eating way too much, sleeping, and watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. What could be better?
The holiday season always makes me slow down a bit mentally, and especially with winter break coming up, days really do seem to slow down. I’m getting ready to go home in about a month, which is making me feel a little nostalgic, a little sentimental, and a little nervous about what the state of my bedroom is (I think Mom’s been using it for storage).
The other day I realized that I’ve been Editor-in-Chief for over a year. It literally made me go, oh shit. A year? A year??? Impossible. Sorry, that’s not right. It was just a few months ago I was in my bedroom in the middle of Stute elections on Zoom. Absolutely no way it’s been a year.
But it has been a year—a little more than a year really. I remember the moment I was elected, I said to myself that I need to treasure every single moment. I remember thinking that the next year and a half was going to be really special, and I should actively make sure I treasure moments and really stay present. I’ve never really done that before, or maybe never had the chance to because I couldn’t predict the future for how something would go. But I knew that while this position was temporary, I would be in it for a while and it was something I was passionate about.
Pretty frequently, often in the middle of something Stute related, I say to myself something along the lines of, “Stop. Look at where you’re standing. Look at what’s around you. Cherish this moment. You’re really lucky to be here.” I have done this so many times; in random scenarios like simply walking into the Stute office, coming off the elevator in the Student Center, or picking up a print issue.
I do this because, to quote Andy Bernard from an episode of The Office, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days, before you’ve actually left them.” Too often I realize that time has passed, and I didn’t treasure what I was doing or what I did while the time was passing. And I didn’t want that to happen during my time as Editor: I didn’t want to look back on 18 months and think that I should have cherished the time more. I didn’t want to look back on it all and wonder where the time went and if I enjoyed it. When I pass on the torch, I want to know that it was really an incredible time of my life, I gave it my all, and I also was completely grateful and present for every single moment.
I know I’ll be able to say that come March. While realizing I’ve been at this for a year did make me kinda shook for a moment, thinking about how much time has passed, it made me even more motivated to truly cherish next semester.
Understandably, The Stute is not publishing next week during Thanksgiving, but we’ll be back for our last issue of the semester on December 3. Next week you can picture me eating pounds of turkey and butternut squash mac and cheese while also kinda freaking out that my time as Editor is almost up. Holy. Shit.
The Stute Editorial is an Opinion column written by the current Editor in Chief of The Stute to address and explain editorial decision making, discuss news and media issues, and develop a sense of trust and transparency between readers and members of The Stute.
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