A bittersweet sendoff for the last issue

I start every column I’ve ever written the same way: brainstorm first, then byline, then I jump right in and just write whatever comes to mind.

This is going to be the last column I ever write for The Transcript. I usually only write these pieces because we need a space to fill, but this time is different. This time it’s personal.

I’ve written for The Transcript since the first semester of my freshman year, and I’ve been an editor for the last two years.

Even if I knew how to do math above a third grade level, there is no way to calculate the amount of late nights I’ve put in working in the Transcript office, writing last-minute, pathetic excuses for articles desperately trying to fill space.

It’s amazing I have any remaining friends for how much ranting and venting I’ve unleashed on them, blabbering on and on about faulty technology, intense ethical decision making and embarrassing editing errors (special shoutout to my infallible roommate, Maria, who always knows when I need a hug … and a bottle of wine).

With all the difficult parts of my job in mind, I was worried that when I started brainstorming for this column, it was going to come out like a whiny sob story. But then I got to my byline, and I realized that this is going to be the last time I refer to myself as the Editor-in-Chief of The Transcript.

I realized next week is the first week in two years where I don’t talk to Hannah Urano or Noah Manskar at least three times each day. I realized that I’m never again going to have our department chair, Paul Kostyu, pinch my arm and tell me to “grow a thicker skin” in response to some angry email I got that morning. I realized that the biggest part of who I’ve been on this campus for the last year is over. And I started crying a little bit.

Being the editor of the paper was hands-down the most challenging task I’ve faced at Ohio Wesleyan. From the moment I came on as editor to now, there has never been one perfect issue. There’s been no day where I left the office thinking, “Eureka!” There has never been a day where I walked out of the office thinking, “There is no way I could make the paper more perfect.”

I had to learn to let go of what I coudn’t control, and to depend on my fellow editors. None of us have an easy job, but it’s worth it.

We do this because we truly believe in a student-run newspaper. We love journalism, and we want to see it practiced on this campus. While we’ve defintitely improved our aresonal of journalism technology, we are still behind and struggle to find new writers, photographers and editors. We are a small department that has a long way to go, but we always push through. From dependable professors abruptly leaving, new professors coming on board and fundamental changes to our cirriculum, our little major has seen a huge overhaul in the last two years.

In short, no part of my career in journalism at OWU has been a cake walk. But because of that, I’m confident in saying The Transcript taught me so much more than anything else I’ve ever done. I doubted myself every step of the way as the editor for The Transcript, and now it’s over.

My emotional state is a mixed bag of pure joy and relief, as well as sadness and nostalgia. I have no idea what I’m going to do without it, but I do know that I’m going to miss it.

I never thought I would hear myself say it, but it’s true. I have the tears to prove it.